"The communications model will be sold to pharma clients who will then deliver it to doctors over the web. We see a huge opportunity in the 13,000-crore pharma market compared with the advertising industry where margins are getting tighter,'' Ram Kumar Seshu, president, MAA Wellness, and Bunty Peerbhoy, chairman, MAA Group Holdings, said.
MAA Wellness' services include ethical brand architecture, direct-to-consumer advertising, Rx (ethical brands) to over the counter (OTC) switches, OTC brands and disease awareness branding.
At present, communication spends only 2 per cent in the Rs 13,000 crore Indian formulation market and marketing spends account for about 10 per cent of total sales. "With over 30,000 and 50 or more brands for each molecule, never before has it been so critical to differentiate companies and their products in the pharmaceutical marketplace,'' Seshu said.
MAA Wellness' latest projects in pharma communications include the Glaxo Wellcome's Amitabh Bachhan take on asthma which falls into the category of disease awareness branding (DAB). With DAB, MAA expects to expand the market and promote quicker acceptance of new brands in the category, boosting sales of quasi OTC brands in the process.
The present ethical brand architecture is characterised by a fast growing generics market, minimal brand differentiation, small first mover window and increasing time constraints for doctor-medical representative interface.
Over the last three years, India's best pharma companies - Glaxo India, Janssen Cilag- Johnson and Johnson, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Smithkline Beecham, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Cadila, Astra IDL - have been associated with MAA Wellness.
Brand building will allow brands to command a premium on the road ahead where the survival of small and medium size companies is a big question mark. The pharma market is now moving towards creation of few monolithic corporations having tremendous marketing muscle, Seshu said.
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As part of its pharma communications thrust, the company is also looking at moving into the `managed care' business where, typically, a small community's medical needs are catered to by a predetermined clinic or nursing home, which in turn has a tie up with one or more pharma companies.
Launched in 1997, MAA Wellness operates as a unit of MAA Bozell, the 10th largest advertising agency in the country. MAA Wellness is a part of Bozell Wellness Worldwide, which comes in at fourth place in the global advertising space with capitalised billings of $109 million.
MAAs international learnings in the pharma sector come from handling a blue chip roster of clients including EliLilly, Roche, Dura, Merck, Cilag-Janseen, Bristol Myers Squibb, IMX, Astra, and UCB.