Lilly Icos Llc

Product Team Cialis

Lilly ICOS LLC a joint venture between Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant and ICOS, a young biotech startup developed an innovative drug for the treatment of erectile dysfunction(ED). The current issue Mark Barbato, the executive director and global product team leader for Cialis is facing is to launch the new drug into the market with an established leader Viagra. Rob Brown (from Lilly) and Leonard Blum, vice president of sales and marketing at ICOS were entrusted with the responsibility to come up with a strategy to identify the target market and positioning against the competition. About 30 million men in the United States and 150 million worldwide experience chronic ED.

Target Market for Cialis

        Market segmentation can be done based on demographic, age, doctors, partners, income and Viagra users/ dropouts. Being the only drug for ED Viagra has established itself in all the segments. Being a new drug and to compete against such a strong brand as Viagra, Cialis needs to target a specific segment for the initial launch. The prevalence of ED below age 40 is very less compared to men with age over 40 (Exhibit 5, Ofek 18). As Cialis is a prescription drug, doctors play an important role in marketing the new drug. In US, France and UK, more than 70% of men consulted the family doctor and less than 40% men preferred to go to the Urologist. A study across urologists and primary-care physicians (PCPs) indicated that efficacy and safety are the most important attributes (Ofek, 6). Most of the physicians expressed their apprehension to prescribe Viagra due to the deaths associated with the use of Viagra. Cialis can use this to their advantage and promote their drug as it didn’t show the side effects shown by Viagra. The onset time of Cialis didn’t get affected by the food intake whereas Viagra reportedly had more onset time when consumed with high fat meals. 80% of men were either married or were living with a partner. According to a research carried out on 104 on married women in the age group 35 and 65 shows that there was lack of information on ED prevalence and the reasons for its occurrence (Ofek, 9).

        In another research conducted on ED patients, majority of them expressed their willingness to try Cialis. More than 90% of Viagra current users and about 80% of Viagra dropouts were interested in Cialis (Table B, Ofek 8). In the United States, 79% of ED patients had their yearly income above $25,000 and 35% of them had their yearly income above $60,000. More than 60% of ED patients earn less than $25,000 in Europe.

        Based on the aforementioned analysis, I would recommend Cialis to target men with age above 40, who have a partner, current Viagra users and dropouts and patients whose income is less than $60,000.

Positioning        

With the established target market, Cialis drug can be promoted as a drug with longer half life with low side effects and can be consumed with high fat meals. Its onset time is also lower compared to Viagra. Cialis offers ED patients a significantly larger window of opportunity to choose the right moment of intimacy (Ofek, 1). Cialis can aggressively promote the drug with the help of physicians highlighting its longer duration and safety profile.

Product

        The name ‘Cialis’ was chosen after testing numerous alternatives, checking for negative associations in many languages and ensuring no trademark conflicts (Ofek, 6). Cialis is a neutral name and is chosen after a lot of testing, so I do not think there is a necessity to make any changes to the product name.

Price

        Even though for majority of ED patients the drug is not covered by their health insurance plan, it can be seen from exhibit 8 that the affordability of the product is not the main factor for not seeking treatment (Exhibit 8, Ofek 21,22). Pfizer priced its drug Viagra at $10 per pill. Cialis being a better drug in every aspect compared to Viagra should price its drug slightly higher than Viagra. So Cialis can be priced at $12 per pill which is closer to Viagra’s price of $10 and it sends a good message to the ED patients that they are getting a better product for a slightly premium price. This would also help the company reach its target of $500 million sales.