Cultivating collaborative and strategic relationships with key accounts is critical to ensuring access and maintaining partnerships across managed care markets. HIRC's Relationship Status and Customer Facing Access report benchmarks 40+ leading pharmaceutical manufacturers based on payer customer evaluations of relationship status and customer facing personnel access to key decision-makers. The report addresses the following questions:

• How do commercial health plan and PBM decision-makers rate their relationships with 40+ pharmaceutical manufacturers?
• Which manufacturers lead in cultivating strategic and collaborative relationships?
• How can a pharmaceutical firm move from having distant/tactical relationships with key accounts to those that are more collaborative/strategic?
• What attributes are critical to enhancing manufacturer account team customer-facing access and strategic relationships?

Key Finding: Customers report overall willingness to contract as the most important factor in determining relationship status with manufacturers, followed by engagement frequency and trust.

Panelists Rate Novo Nordisk as Most Collaborative/Strategic Partner. Managed markets customers were asked to rate their relationships with 40+ manufacturers from distant to strategic. Novo Nordisk leads with about 74% of panelists reporting their relationship as collaborative and/or strategic. Lilly and Pfizer follow, with over 60% of respondents rating their relationship with each company as collaborative and/or strategic.

The full report includes a full listing of 40+ manufacturer relational status ratings across national plans, regional plans, BCBS plans, and PBMs.

Relationships with Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. Respondents were asked to rate 40+ manufacturer relationships with their organization as either distant, tactical, collaborative, or strategic. Managed markets key decision-makers rate 10% of their relationships with manufacturers as strategic, 33% as collaborative, 38% as tactical, and the remaining 19% as distant.

While contracting and trust are top drivers of strategic and collaborative relationships, relational status can also be enhanced by product portfolios and perception of manufacturer capabilities, resources, and commitment to managed care. The complete report provides detailed customer feedback on exemplar manufacturer relationship building and how manufacturers can move from distant/tactical relationships to those that are more collaborative/strategic.

Research Methodology and Report Availability. In January, HIRC surveyed 80 key decision-makers from leading commercial health plans and pharmacy benefit managers. Online surveys and follow-up telephone interviews were used to gather information. The Relationship Status and Customer Facing Access report is part of the Best Programs and Best People Service and is now available to subscribers at www.hirc.com.