“Product life cycle in the pharmaceutical market is same as our life cycle, i.e. introduction (birth), growth, maturity and decline (death)”.
In human life we needs various types of calories at different stages in the same way, product of pharmaceutical marketing needs various types of inputs to sustain or maintain longer life of the product.
In introductory phase, product is introduced into the market and needs a lot of efforts to get prescription from doctor. Here sale is very low and confers only availability at Chemist level. This phase demands lot of inputs like product detailing, physician’s sample and reference print etc.
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Growth phase involves actual sale of product and number of prescriptions should be increased. Here fear of competitors to enter and snatch the sale is more than that is not with introductory phase. To achieve maximum sale needs constant reminders to doctors and attractive gifts and arranging symposia, together helps to maintain top market position.
The maturity phase is the phase where the product achieves optimum sale in the market place and further growth is extremely low. All potential customers are tapped and demand reaches a plateau.
Maintaining maturity phase requires finer strategies that may leads to price war. Competitors are always keeping a watch on this and implement strategies like product differentiation, innovative packaging and modified communication strategy to capture some share from the market.
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The decline phase is the terminal point of product life cycle. To avoid death of the product needs to prolong the process of maturity phase. In this product innovation and changes in marketing patterns and strategies related to continuous hammering help to avoid this phase.
Therefore it is difficult to predict time interval required in above mentioned phases with this product life cycle one can anticipate the future events and should prepare to take necessary steps.
Market Life Cycle:
Market growth and product growth is interdependent. Market potential increases with increasing the constraints like population, paying capacity, urbanization etc. Therefore market life cycle show a growth phase due to the introduction of new products. Company can maintain their growth phase by frequent new launch of new product in the market.
It is also true that market competitor maintains the growth rate of the market to survive. For example, out of the total sales turnover of the companies like Cipla ltd, Kopran Ltd and GlaxoSmithKline Ltd only the anti-asthmatic range contributes major share.
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As per published data of ORG-MARG, out of this, the major contributing molecules of its anti-asthmatic range are Salbutamol, Theophyllin, and Etophyllin etc., which are showing a very low growth profile. Besides this, around 60 percentage of the anti-asthmatic market is fully dominated by Cipla Ltd growing at a high rate.
Therefore the reason behind the continuous growth of Cipla Ltd is the product innovation and new launches like Rotahaler (a device used for inhalation purpose) and new products (brands) like Flohale (Fluticasone), Beclate (Beclamethasone), Ipravent (Ipratropium) are few amongst them.
For extending product life cycle one needs to find out new usage and new indications under the same therapeutic class. Here niche marketing concept i.e. entering in micro level marketing or geographically uncovered market, product modifications like oral to injectible or oral to inhalation or changing pack size, also offering new flavors and colors full packing for like product proved to be the best option.
Furthermore another example of this as, Antibacterial is a market with high volumetric sale where Cipla Ltd is a major player. Since years together, Cipla Ltd is a brand leader with the major brands like ‘Novamox’ (Amoxycillin) with product differentiation in strengths as 250/500 capsules, 125/250 dispersible tablets.
But in year 1996 they introduced ‘Novamox Pediatric Drop’ in 30ml and 60ml pack. That had shown an excellent acceptance in the market. Such type of brand extension to product adds value to extend decline phase.
But in year 2000 they again introduced ‘Novamox Rediuse’ in 125 ml and 250 ml pack with delicious pineapple flavor. And once again this new type of product innovation helps the company Cipla Ltd to maintain its strong position in antibiotic market.