Excellence in Provision of Patient Services

Summary of work

Remicade (infliximab) is a biologic used in the treatment of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Remicade is given as an intravenous infusion while our only competitor (Humira) is given as a subcutaneous injection.

From 2009 we have focused on both establishing Remicade in the treatment pathway for CD and differentiating Remicade from the competition.

Our objectives have been on growth, market share and campaign implementation.

Three core initiatives have been consistently evolved throughout 2009–2011 to enable MSD to achieve our objectives. These are:

• Market access propositions
  - Identification of service issues and solutions, "lean" solutions to capacity issuesand commercial proposition
• Medical education
  - Best practice, clinical and non-clinical developments
• Promotional campaign
  - Focusing on establishing treatment pathways and improving patient outcomes

Our learnings include the importance of customer insight in the development and evolution of these core initiatives. The patient should be at the centre of the core campaign with the focus on improving patient outcomes and experience. This should be consistent in our market access and medical propositions and also our sales promotional campaign.

Incorporating the sales team in the development of the campaigns has ensured "buy-in" and has resulted in effective implementation of the campaign.

Executive summary as submitted

Judges comments

"A good programme with a very thorough approach and long term strategy."