Pharma Research Providers Lead Clients Online

Agency side pharma researchers are more comfortable using the Internet for their studies than their client side counterparts, according to analysis of the 2006 Pharmaceutical Market Research Trends Study from Medefield.

Agency personnel rated online research higher for both comfort and perceived credibility – and overall conducted 63% of their 2006 quant research online, while for those in manufacturing companies the figure was 43%. Agency researchers also credited the Internet with providing higher quality data than phone interviews.

The report is based on a comparison of the 2006 Market Research Trends Study - which analyzed responses from 122 MR execs at 20 global pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers - and a separate study, conducted simultaneously, with 107 professional market researchers at agencies around the world. Elys Roberts, President of Medefield America, says the gap is at first glance an odd one given the fact that agencies and manufacturers 'work together so closely'.

Roberts says comfort level – which is about 14% higher on the agency side - appears to correlate closely with experience, and 'agency people tend to have been in the field longer'. He explains: 'Often they've made a career of research, with relevant graduate qualifications. On the pharmaceutical side, the researcher is more likely to come from a background in one of the other disciplines - such as marketing or sales - and be serving a relatively brief rotation in research.'

Roberts suggests that one reason for persisting with telephone research is for consistency of results, and that using both a phone and Internet sample for one or a few studies is a good way to convince researchers to worry less about this: 'Typically there is very little difference and when researchers can see this kind of comparative data they tend to be more comfortable making the switch.' They can then take advantage of the universally acknowledged preference of most physicians for the convenience of Internet surveys, completed in their own time.

Medefield claims to conduct more global online physician surveys than any other agency in the world and has a proprietary database of more than 400,000 physicians.

Based in New York and with a European office in Mayfair, London, Medefield is online at www.medefield.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

• Medefield Europe
• All news