Our client asked for help because a new test for Helicobacter pylori which had better performance characteristics and similar cost to existing tests was not performing well in the UK market. Our client wanted to understand the reasons and recommendations on what to do.
We reviewed the current approach, which was through a distributor of pathology laboratory products. The distributor did not have contacts outside the pathology network, and had made no approaches other than to pathology laboratories. Although the laboratories recognised the quality of the performance characteristics of the new test, it required a different method of handling specimens. This in turn required more involvement from the general practitioners (GPs, family physicians) who are generally the first doctors to see patients with relevant symptoms. The client’s product was trapped in a Catch-22 situation: the pathology laboratory did not want to offer the test unless the GPs requested it, and the GPs did not request the test because it was not available.
Translucency reviewed current guidance on the treatment of suspected or known peptic ulceration, and current practice in a random sample of geographical areas in the UK.
Translucency’s report established the dynamics of decision making for the product and recommended that the client use a more broad-based systems approach to marketing. As a by-product of our work on the product, we made available to the client an outline of the key efficience arguments for the product, and developed an action plan for the client to consider.
The client concluded that the UK market was not one in which they wished to promote their test. However, the material generated by Translucency has been useful in developing marketing and sales activity in other major EU markets.