How to Conduct Healthcare Market Research

루스 스타나트

How to Conduct Healthcare Market Research

SIS 국제시장 조사 및 전략

의료 기관이 제공할 서비스를 어떻게 결정하는지, 제약 회사가 어떤 약물을 개발할지 결정하는지 궁금한 적이 있습니까? 이러한 결정 뒤에는 의료 시장 조사가 있습니다. 

It guides the health sector towards more informed choices, effective strategies, and ultimately, better patient care. But, what exactly is 헬스케어 시장 조사, and why is it so vital to the health industry?

헬스케어 시장 조사 이해

소비재나 금융 서비스와 달리 대부분의 의료 제품 및 서비스 구매는 일반적으로 선택 사항이 아닙니다.  하지만 그렇다고 해서 당신이 파는 것을 누군가가 반드시 사야 한다는 뜻은 아닙니다!  따라서 "건전한"(말장난 의도) 사업을 유지하기 위해 대답해야 할 질문이 많이 있습니다.

의료 시장은 주로 다음과 같이 구성됩니다.

How to Conduct Healthcare Market Research That Drives Commercial Advantage

Healthcare market research succeeds when it answers a specific commercial question. The strongest programs start with a decision, not a questionnaire.

VP-level leaders at Fortune 500 healthcare companies face a tighter evidence bar than peers in other sectors. Payers want a defensible value story. Regulators want real-world evidence. Physicians want trial data and peer signal. Patients want clarity on access and out-of-pocket cost. A single research program has to satisfy all four audiences and still inform pricing, positioning, and launch sequencing. Knowing how to conduct healthcare market research at this level separates programs that shape commercial strategy from programs that produce slideware.

Anchor the Research Design to a Specific Commercial Decision

The most productive healthcare market research starts with a decision memo, not a discussion guide. Leaders who draft the decision first (indication prioritization, formulary positioning, launch sequencing, geographic expansion) build research that resolves the question rather than describing the category.

This shapes three design choices. Sample frame moves from “physicians” to the prescribers, payers, and pharmacy directors who control the specific decision pathway. Stimuli move from concept boards to value propositions tested against the payer value story already in development. Output moves from a market sizing deck to a recommendation tied to a P&L assumption.

SIS International’s work with global pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers consistently shows that the highest-leverage healthcare studies blend B2B expert interviews with KOL mapping and patient journey mapping in a single design, because the commercial question rarely sits inside one stakeholder group.

Build the Stakeholder Map Before Writing a Single Question

Healthcare decisions move through a stakeholder chain. A therapy gains traction when the prescriber, the medical director, the pharmacy and therapeutics committee, the payer, and the patient each see a reason to act. Research designs that interview only physicians miss the binding constraint.

Effective KOL mapping identifies three tiers: international thought leaders who shape guidelines, regional experts who influence formulary decisions, and community prescribers who drive volume. Each tier requires different recruitment, different incentives, and different stimuli. Mixing them into one sample produces averages that describe no one.

Patient journey mapping then traces the diagnostic pathway, treatment initiation, adherence, and switching behavior. The points where patients drop off the pathway are usually where commercial value sits. Companies including Novartis, Roche, and Medtronic have built launch strategies around drop-off points identified through ethnographic research rather than survey data.

Match the Method to the Evidence the Decision Requires

Method selection is where most healthcare programs leak value. Quantitative surveys generate confidence intervals but rarely explain switching behavior. Qualitative interviews surface mechanism but cannot size a market. The strongest programs sequence them.

A practical sequence: B2B expert interviews with twelve to twenty specialists to map the decision logic, ethnographic observation in three to five clinical sites to validate stated behavior against actual behavior, then a quantitative study of two hundred to four hundred prescribers to size and segment. Real-world evidence pulled from claims data calibrates the self-reported numbers against actual prescribing patterns.

Decision Type Primary Method Validating Method
Indication prioritization KOL interviews Real-world evidence review
Pricing and access Payer interviews, conjoint HTA submission precedent analysis
Launch sequencing Patient journey mapping Claims data analysis
포지셔닝 Message testing, focus groups Quantitative prescriber survey
Biosimilar defense 경쟁 정보 Switching study with prescribers

Source: SIS International Research

Engineer the Payer Value Story Into the Research Itself

Market access strategy fails when payer evidence is generated after the commercial study, not inside it. The leading manufacturers test the payer value story in the same wave as the prescriber concept, so the message that wins clinical preference is also the message that survives formulary review.

In structured payer interviews conducted by SIS across the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Japan, pharmacy directors consistently rank total cost of care, real-world evidence, and budget impact above efficacy delta when efficacy parity already exists. Programs that surface this hierarchy early reshape the HTA submission evidence package before it is locked.

Conjoint analysis with payers, run against a defined comparator set, produces willingness-to-pay estimates that survive scrutiny from finance and market access leadership. Pairing this with a biosimilar competitive intelligence scan keeps pricing assumptions honest as the loss-of-exclusivity window approaches.

Treat Recruitment as a Strategic Variable, Not a Procurement Task

Healthcare research lives or dies on respondent quality. A study of oncologists with five percent of caseload in the relevant tumor type is not a study of the market. Specifications should define caseload thresholds, years in practice, institutional affiliation, and treatment authority. Panel companies that recruit on specialty alone produce data that fails internal medical affairs review.

The strongest recruitment briefs build in a screening interview before the main interview, conducted by a researcher rather than a panel agent. This adds cost and adds days. It also removes the respondents who would otherwise contaminate the dataset and force a re-field.

Design for Cross-Border Comparability From Day One

Healthcare markets do not generalize. A launch sequencing decision across the United States, Germany, Brazil, and Japan requires research instruments that hold the construct constant while adapting the language, the reimbursement context, and the stimuli. Translation alone is insufficient. The instrument has to be culturally validated by clinicians in each market before fielding.

Cross-border programs that skip this step generate findings that look comparable in a deck and fall apart in a regional planning meeting. The fix is a small qualitative pilot in each market before the quantitative wave, with the discussion guide refined country by country.

The SIS Healthcare Research Sequence

A defensible program runs in five stages. Decision framing produces the question the research must resolve. Stakeholder mapping defines the sample frame across prescribers, payers, and patients. Qualitative discovery (B2B expert interviews, KOL mapping, ethnographic observation) builds the hypothesis set. Quantitative validation sizes and segments. Synthesis converts findings into a commercial recommendation tied to specific P&L assumptions.

Companies treating healthcare market research as a sequenced commercial intelligence program, rather than a series of standalone studies, build a knowledge base that compounds across launches. The second indication costs less to research than the first because the stakeholder map, the prescriber panel, and the payer relationships already exist.

Where Commercial Advantage Sits

SIS 국제시장 조사 및 전략

The advantage in healthcare market research now sits in three places: the speed of the qualitative-to-quantitative cycle, the integration of real-world evidence into primary research, and the discipline of tying every study back to a specific commercial decision. Programs built on these three principles produce intelligence that survives executive review and shapes launch outcomes. Knowing how to conduct healthcare market research at this standard is what separates manufacturers who lead categories from those who follow them.

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루스 스타나트

SIS International Research & Strategy의 설립자 겸 CEO. 전략적 계획 및 글로벌 시장 정보 분야에서 40년 이상의 전문 지식을 바탕으로, 그녀는 조직이 국제적 성공을 달성하도록 돕는 신뢰할 수 있는 글로벌 리더입니다.

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