Ageing consumers and the future of Pharma

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I found this presentation by Patrick Dixon – titled: “Older Health Consumers: Marketing To Ageing Customers – the future for Pharma” interesting, but I have a couple of ‘buts’.

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This guy clearly has a wealth of examples and broad scope of vision but he tends to spray the audience and the viewer with so many facts and ‘possibilities’ that it is difficult to conclude anything other than there is a lot of stuff happening.

If the purpose of the presentation was to enthuse the audience to the subject of older people then it certainly works but does not really address  what you do next.

These are a few of the things I took away from listening to the presentation:

I know Nutraceuticals are important but it cannot be said too many times what an exciting market they will be – he makes an interesting point that the largest producers and consumers are likely to be in the East rather than the West.

He says that ‘lack of energy’ is a major issue for older people. I am not sure about this but it makes me wonder if the condition is not a proxy for other concerns and symptoms? 

He makes a good point that the educated old are losing faith in the medical and care professions and progressively looking for ways to get control of their own destiny. In the UK, if you go and see your GP you will get 8.5 mins of their attention to diagnose your condition and to specify a treatment. The GP is unlikely to know anything about you other than a few scant notes. Then you have to navigate the bureaucracy of the NHS system to get any resulting tests done. No wonder people try and do their own diagnosis, and if possible do their own tests. Then they can short-circuit much of the delay. Dr Google is the most widely consulted Doctor in the world.

Some good points about the binary nature of how older people go from being OK to not OK. Sure this happens to all ages but much more likely when people are in their 60s and 70s. I am not sure we have even begun to considering the marketing implications.

Certainly one area that I am aware needs more work is the way that lifestyle groups lose their importance as people start to have significant physiological health issues. Another topic for my thinking.

Good video – but it needs a lot of unpicking to get the value.

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