Last week Incential sponsored and presented at the CBI Specialty Sales Models conference in La Jolla.  One of the most talked about topics at the conference, both in and out of the sessions, was how the role of the Pharma Rep is changing.  The traditional role of a detail rep is splitting into many new roles that bio-pharma companies will choose from based on their business model.  At Incential, we think that there could end up being at least four different types of rep roles in the future: 1) the Customer Service Rep that simply provides materials and samples as the liaison between the healthcare provider and the manufacturer (note: this role can often be performed remotely via call center or web site), 2) the Clinical Rep, similar to a Medical Science Liaison, 3) the Financial or Reimbursement Rep focused on assisting the provider in qualifying their patients financially for the therapy, and 4) the Account Rep that calls on the business decision makers within healthcare corporations.

Given this major shift in the role of the pharmaceutical "sales" rep, we must re-think how we incentivize these individuals.  For example, some of these new roles will have a mission that does not directly align with growing sales volume, but rather providing information that better determines the correct patient profile for their company's therapy.  Therefore, using traditional prescription or sales data is not the best method for some new roles.  Incential has developed new incentive structures that utilize alternative data sources available to the industry.  These new data sources combined with new metrics are critical to aligning the right incentives to the right role so the Pharma Sales Organization 2.0 can combine these different roles into a single, effective sales engine.