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I went to lunch with a friend the other day to ask him about his company's marketing journey.

You see, I knew that he and his partner had hired a mark

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

eting coach a couple of years back. I wanted to find out what their experience was like and where they had challenges and successes along the way.

Thi

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

s particular company is very typical of the small, service-based businesses that I focus on in my own marketing practice. They would tell you that they

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

're a couple of accountants who are really good at what they do and enjoy the clients they work with. They would also tell you that they weren't market

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ng people who knew how to attract a steady stream of new business.

I asked my friend if there was a particular point in time or event that finally

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

triggered their marketing breakthrough. I wanted to understand what they learned through their own trial and error. I wanted to see if there was so

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

mething specific that helped them finally crack the code on marketing.

At first he thought the answer was when they finally narrowed down their tar

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

get market. They finally defined a niche that was a very good fit for them, made sense to them, and helped them stay laser beam focused. We agreed

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

hat this was a huge breakthrough. It's often easy to say, but usually very hard for small businesses to narrow their target market. This was a step tha

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

t was clearly paying dividends for my friend's small business.

But, it wasn't really the answer for what helped them make their marketing breakthrough

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

. After a little further discussion we discovered that the practice never made any marketing headway until they defined and clarified their Purpose and

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

Vision.

Without a clearly defined Purpose and Vision, the business owners could never really articulate what they were and what they were trying t

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

get done. A little more discussion with his partner confirmed it for us. Without clarifying their purpose and vision, the business was very reacti

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

ve.

None of the marketing strategies or tactics that their marketing coach was helping them implement proved to be productive. The reality was they we

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

re reactively taking whatever business they could get through the door.

Clarifying their Purpose and Vision created the marketing breakthrough.

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

Purpose and vision tell you and everyone else what it is you're out to cause and where you want to go and what impact you want to make with the busine

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

s. Doing this gave my friend and his partner focus and direction that didn't exist before. It made narrowing their target market and all these other ma

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

rketing strategies and tactics make sense.

I started to think about all of my own client relationships. Some time back I had decided to build articula

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

ting purpose and vision into my ABCD Growth Marketing Model. It was a piece that seemed to be missing from successful marketing relationships and now m

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

y lunch discussion appears to have confirmed it for me.

What do you think? Can you effectively market your business without Purpose and Vision?

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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