Case study 1 Joint patient-physician opportunity assessment

Bringing together patient interest and physician endorsement to create an accurate picture of future product uptake.

How influence impacted interest for an allergy treatment

"Physician recommendation was likely to play a key role in patient acceptance."

Our client was looking to understand the opportunity for a new allergy medication. Qualitative research showed there was an interest from patients. It also suggested key patient segments which would be more or less willing to use the treatment, and showed that the strength of the physician recommendation could play a substantial role in patient acceptance.

In order to quantify the opportunity, we conducted multi-stakeholder research with both physicians and patients. The product profile was relatively well-defined, so only a handful of fixed-profile product offerings were shown, capturing the spectrum of possible offerings at launch without more complex analytics.

Adjusting for overstatement

Over-estimation of product use is common in market research, so we use a gated approach as well as a variety of questioning and modelling techniques. These enable us to be certain that use estimates will better reflect actual HCP prescribing or patient acceptance.

In this particular study, we asked for respondents’ interest in using each product profile – as well as the intensity of their interest – using the 11-point Juster Scale. Respondents who said they would use a product but not with conviction, such as those who answered there was only a fairly good possibility (5 in 10), were discounted in the aggregate model. This allowed us to deflate stated use to account for over-estimation, giving a more accurate overall picture.

	Interest in Product X
Certain / Practically certain (99 in 100)	10
Almost sure (9 in 10)	9
Very probable (8 in 10)	8
Probable (7 in 10)	7
Good possibility (6 in 10)	6
Fairly good possibility (4 in 10)	5
Fair possibility (4 in 10)	4
Some possibility (3 in 10)	3
Slight possibility (2 in 10)	2
Very slight chance (1 in 10)	1
No / Almost no chance (1 in 10)	0

Table: The Juster Scale measuring patient interest

Predicting uptake in
a range of scenarios

To model uptake, we asked patients about their interest in the product in three different scenarios:

Their doctor presented the product as an option
Their doctor actively recommended the product
Their doctor presented the product as an option but said they didn’t think it was right for them

We also surveyed physicians, showing them the product profiles and asking whether they would prescribe the product at all. If they answered ‘yes’, we asked whether, for each of the key patient segments, they would:

Mention the product as an option
Actively recommend it for many people
Think that the product wasn’t right

Combining physician and patient perspectives

Results from both surveys were combined to develop the final output. We compiled physician use / non-use and the intensity of their recommendation into an aggregate adjustment term for each patient segment, showing what percentage of physicians would a)
actively recommend b) offer as an option c) offer, but not encourage, or d) would not use at all.
Using the Juster Scale, we calculated the deflated likelihood of use for patients in each segment, in each of the three physician recommendation scenarios. We were then able to calculate patient values using a weighted average of the percentage of physicians who said they would recommend in each of the three ways (no physician would not recommend). By combining these analysis, we were able to provide a much more accurate picture of likely product uptake for the allergy medication.