Lilly and Sankyo to share sales team
pharmafile | October 27, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
Eli Lilly and Sankyo Pharma UK are to share sales representatives in an innovative new arrangement co-ordinated by contract sales company In2Focus.
The agreement is understood to be the first example in the UK of a truly co-funded sales team.
The non-competing products will be given equal time and weighting in their promotion, which will be handled by In2FocusI2Medical team.
Ian Knowlton, Director of Primary Care at Lilly, said that the initiative is a cost-effective way of getting product messages to their target audience.
"We believe that In2Focusinitiative is truly innovative and gives us an opportunity to promote our new erectile dysfunction product Cialis in a highly effective and cost efficient manner".
In2Focus says its co-funded I2Medical team is an economical alternative to the traditional syndicated sales model.
"The notion of co-funded teams is something we have developed to benefit our customers", said Stephen Kerridge, Chairman of In2Focus.
"Pharmaceutical companies who buy this service will get guaranteed exposure at a competitive cost, while the doctors benefit from focused discussions about only two products in the call. The net result being a much improved sales interaction, pull through and sales outcome".
He added that the challenge in such teams is simply to find suitable partner companies whose requirements are similar but whose products are not in competing in the same market.






