The Hindu Business Line : Nicholas Piramal to test FMCG style for promoting drugs

WITH the consumer in focus, pharma-major Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL) is looking to take a leaf out of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) strategist's book to market its medicines.

The drug company is toying with combining the FMCG style of promotion with the traditional methods used to promote an ethical or prescription medicine.

"What we are trying to do in FMCG is to look at a brand. India is a market where the older brands continue to be. The largest brand Becosule (a vitamin tablet) had been around for years. You also have to sell in terms of how you position a product. While the medical content is very important, it is also the marketing content, that's where we get the FMCG guidance. We have people who are from hard-core pharma and there are others who have an FMCG background so that they can look at it from a consumer's point of view," Mr Ajay Piramal, Chairman of NPIL, told Business Line.

NPIL's top ten brands forming about 30.4 per cent of the portfolio, grew at 14.3 per cent last year, even as the pharma industry grew at 7.5 per cent. An analyst tracking the pharma and FMCG sector observed that NPIL's strategy could be to outsource medical representatives (MR) to promote medicines to doctors in regions not covered by its field-force. "Despite NPIL having among the country's largest field-force (about 3,000 people), it makes sense to outsource MRs. Their remuneration is linked to sales and since they are not on the pay-rolls, it means less overheads to the company, even as coverage increases. Even strong marketing companies like Pfizer adopt this strategy.

Meanwhile, Mr Piramal said: "We are doing a lot of brand building in our market. The company is trying to get an FMCG culture. Today, we have in our organisation, people who come from diverse backgrounds, not just pharmaceuticals, so that they can think outside the box. So there are people who have come from FMCG, consulting and there are pharma-specialists. The combination of this, we feel, will help us grow faster in the market. And this is for our ethical or prescription products (that are sold to consumers only on receipt of a prescription)," he said.

Taking the FMCG learning further, he said the company was also looking at rural marketing. "We are doing some test pilot to look at the best way to promote products in the most cost effective way. These are still trials," he said.

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