A Valuable Drug Portfolio May Remain Underutilised

Pharmaceutical companies’ product portfolios are valuable assets, yet they may remain underutilised. Medaffcon’s Senior Consultant Pekka Männistö and Sales Lead Tomi Vahevaara help clients ensure they can leverage the full potential of medicines already on the market in the most comprehensive way possible.

According to Pekka Männistö, Senior Consultant at Medaffcon, lifecycle thinking in the pharmaceutical industry has sometimes been approached almost passively: a medicine receives marketing authorization, a price is negotiated, and then companies wait until patent expiry, when generic competition enters the market. At the same time, prices decline.

A collapse in price levels is a real threat, Männistö notes, but it does not happen overnight.

“There is roughly a decade between marketing authorization and the entry of generics. Markets are not static: new competitors emerge, treatment guidelines change, and clinical practice evolves. The key question is whether a company can respond to these points of discontinuity,” Männistö says.

Price Should Be a Competitive Tool

Männistö refers to the classic 4P marketing model—product, price, place, and promotion. Of these, price is, in his view, systematically underutilised in the pharmaceutical industry. Once set, the price tends to remain fixed, rather than being treated as a competitive tool.

“This is a significant shortcoming, particularly in hospital medicines. With an intelligent contract structure, it is possible to increase the use of an underutilised product, protect market share against new competitors, and create a more attractive value proposition for the buyer,” Männistö explains.

The Reasons for Low Uptake Should Always Be Investigated

Low utilisation of a medicine may be driven by clinical uncertainty, patient selection criteria, reimbursement conditions, practical barriers to use, or more active promotion by a competing product. According to Männistö, these factors are often not examined in a sufficiently systematic way even though they clearly should be.

“When two similar products are competing in the same market, the company that dares to act is more likely to capture market share,” Männistö says.

Clinicians play a key role, particularly those with a strong view of the medicine and influence within professional networks. Constructive dialogue with them about the factors leading to underutilisation can open concrete opportunities for action. Sometimes a solution is found, sometimes not; however, without proper analysis, a solution will not be found at all.

“Internal company culture can also be a barrier. In a risk‑averse organisation, initiating this kind of discussion may be perceived as risky. Critically reviewing the portfolio or challenging the pricing strategy can feel threatening, even though it may be essential from a business perspective,” Männistö assesses.