Health Care Marketplace

*Please note that applicants to this short course should go via King's Apply (click red 'Apply' button on the right of this page) and select the following programme*:

Pharmaceutical Medicine Non-Award (Part-time)

Module Code 7BBP0010 

This module explores all aspects of the strategic marketing of medicines. It includes amongst other topics health technology assessments and the work of NICE; Patient engagement; the commercialisation of medicines; product acquisition and medical due diligence; professionalism and ethics and medical affairs. The teaching is supplemented with workshops.

The incorrect positioning of a medicine in the market can prevent an otherwise effective therapy reaching its full commercial potential. Developing a medicine that will be commercially successful requires (among other things) a judicious appreciation of how its acceptability is determined by patients, healthcare professionals, politics, national and international regulations, society in general and economics.

The module covers the principles and practice of marketing medicines and notably: market structure, market analysis, co-marketing, competition, generics and biosimilars, parallel importation, over the counter products, product support and the codes of conduct governing the generation of claims and promotion; the process to approve information destined for patients as well as healthcare practitioners, publication strategies and sales representative training, in-licensing, and strategies for the reclassification of medicines.

The module also covers medical affairs and the principles of evidence-based medicine, outcomes research, formularies, the techniques for measuring healthcare efficiency, government policy and third-party reimbursement, and Health Technology Assessments (HTA). HTA and Healthcare economics are treated over a whole day.

This is an intense 5-day module. Half of this time is devoted to workshops. There is a heavy slant on industry practice, regulations, and business management practices. The module will suit those seeking a practitioner perspective of the healthcare marketplace, especially those seeking to learn how to apply judgment to make ethical commercial decisions in the marketplace. The module will also suit those wishing to develop their professional and managerial competences for application in the industry.

• To give a deep understanding of the social, political and economic factors that influence the healthcare marketplace.
• To give a deep understanding of how commercial business objectives, healthcare stakeholders, and healthcare marketplace regulations influence the development of medicinal products.
• To provide advanced training in the practice of medical marketing communication
• To contextualise the blend of ethical, commercial and medical aspects of a medical marketing strategy within the current regulatory framework.

By the end of this module students will be able to:

• Understand the commercial healthcare environment, the regulations that govern the healthcare market, and implement solutions in response to that market e.g. perform marketing activities that are both commercially justified and legally compliant and that also comply with the ethical separation of the influences of R&D on one hand and Sales and Marketing on the other.
• Analyse healthcare marketplace data in order to analyse the commercial viability of a pharmaceutical product e.g. evaluate the sales and marketing potential for in-licensing a medicine.

Minimum entry requirements are either a medical degree (such as an MBBS) or a 2:1 first degree in pharmacy, pharmacology, biology, biochemistry, chemistry or related subject.