Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) data continues to be the gold standard as evident for clinical safety and efficacy. It supports product registration and prescriptions in pharma and healthcare. RCTs provide data in the real-world clinical settings; however, their controlled nature within the real world is a limitation. Moving from controlled environment into real-world settings gives a true picture of the medication effectiveness along the patient treatment pathway. Healthcare decision makers are demanding real-world evidence to support clinical effectiveness and safety before approval in addition to RCTs and also to support various healthcare policy developments. Real-World Data (RWD) provides data to various stakeholders, e.g., payers who are looking for cost-effectiveness; physicians to effectively manage patients; and providers looking towards reducing healthcare delivery cost. RWD gets generated via various sources but the fastest methods being observational studies and patient registries. Post-marketing studies also generate RWD which are now frequently being asked by the regulators for demonstrating efficacy, quality, and safety. This shift in trend from RCTs to real-world data has marketing implications since pharmaceutical and healthcare marketers customize the marketing messages with the help of data generated from the RCT and other evidences generated during the clinical trials. The shift from RCTs to real-world data needs a shift in focus from RCT to real-world evidences from marketing and sales perspectives. This research paper focuses on the use of RWD analytics in pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing.

Currently, there is a major shift occurring in the pharmaceutical and healthcare landscape across the globe. Pharmaceutical companies are facing unprecedented challenges as revenues are under pressure. Even in the challenging environment, the global pharmaceutical market was valued at $1,057 bn, registering a growth of 8.4% in 2014 (Imshealth.com, 2015). This is for the first time that the industry has crossed the billion dollars mark to be valued as a trillion dollar industry. Global pharmaceutical market is showing a growth but the growth rate was low in the year 2012-13 due to various economic as well as marketing forces like patent expiry.

Various forces are compelling the pharmaceutical companies to transform from the traditional business model to new business models. This will make pharmaceutical companies more agile and lean, by which they could respond quickly to the environmental changes. Some of these forces not only impact the way the pharmaceutical companies do the business but also impact the sales and marketing delivery process as a whole. Some of the leading forces include patent expiries, rising healthcare cost, competition, shorter duration to market, slow sales growth, tight regulatory environment, dry product pipeline, rising cost to develop new pharmaceutical products, etc.

Knowledge Management Journal, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT), Real-World Data (RWD), Real-World Data, Global Pharmaceutical Marketing Dynamics, Real-World Data Analytics, Global Pharmaceutical Marketing.