Pharmaceutical Institute introduces comprehensive series of e-courses on hospital marketplace

Pharmaceutical Institute, a leading provider of specialized training solutions for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, today announced the launch of a new e-course titled, Hospital Marketplace. The new Hospital Marketplace e-course is the newest addition to the company's Managed Markets Excellence(TM) series, a comprehensive series of e-courses designed to fill the critical need for basic and advanced managed markets knowledge for commercial professionals.

The new three module Hospital Marketplace e-course explores the hospital environment from the perspective of the pharmaceutical manufacturer, offering both an introduction to the hospital marketplace and an examination of the ways in which pharmaceutical manufacturers strive to position their products and drive product demand within those institutions.

• Hospitals and Group Purchasing Organizations - This module provides a detailed "close-up" of hospitals as institutions, exploring their organizational structure, the roles of employee and non-employee medical personnel, and the various ways in which hospitals are categorized. This module also explains the concept of the group purchasing organization (GPO) and the pivotal role that GPOs play in product selection among member hospitals.

• Formulary Access - This module focuses on the importance of attaining a position on the hospital formulary and the process by which formulary status is attained, including the roles of account managers and sales representatives in generating support among key hospital stakeholders.

• Demand Creation - This module focuses on the impact of current hospital payment mechanisms on therapeutic choice and the varied techniques that hospitals use to manage drug utilization. It also describes the difficult environment that sales representatives now confront when trying to encourage product use, given increasing constraints on interactions with hospital stakeholders.

"It is critical that industry sales teams operating in the hospital marketplace fully understand institutional dynamics, clinical and economic business drivers, and the secrets of successful product promotion," says Garry O'Grady, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Pharmaceutical Institute. "Companies that invest in training their sales representatives and front-line managers on the challenging hospital sales environment will be in the best position to drive demand for their products in the hospital marketplace."