Get Guardian on GoogleFor pharmaceutical companies, having strong clinical evidence is only part of the challenge. Physicians must encounter that evidence through channels they trust, understand where a treatment may fit in clinical practice and have an opportunity to engage with the information in ways relevant to their patients.
During his time at Novartis Nigeria, pharmacist Isaac Awulu worked as a Medical Representative within the company’s cardiovascular business, where his responsibilities included physician engagement and commercial initiatives supporting brands including Entresto, the company’s sacubitril/valsartan therapy for heart failure.
One of those initiatives was a physician-engagement and demand-generation programme that brought together field detailing, targeted digital outreach and ongoing performance analytics. Awulu helped coordinate the programme and used engagement data to inform adjustments as it progressed.
The programme ultimately recorded an approximately 35 percent increase in lead generation, a measure of healthcare-professional engagement with the brand.
The Challenge of Physician Engagement
Heart failure presents a significant health burden in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence from the Sub-Saharan Africa Survey of Heart Failure, which included 1,006 patients across 12 university hospitals in nine countries, found a mean patient age of approximately 52 years. Hypertension was the leading identified cause, accounting for 45.4 percent of cases.
The findings illustrate the context in which pharmaceutical companies communicate treatment evidence to physicians. Cardiologists and other healthcare professionals must evaluate therapies while managing demanding clinical workloads and receiving information from conferences, peer-reviewed publications, professional associations, digital platforms and pharmaceutical field teams.
Entresto entered that environment with substantial clinical evidence. In the PARADIGM-HF trial involving 8,442 patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction, sacubitril/valsartan reduced the risk of the composite endpoint of cardiovascular death or heart-failure hospitalization by 20 percent compared with enalapril. The medicine was subsequently incorporated into major treatment guidelines.
The commercial challenge was therefore not simply creating awareness that the medicine existed. It was ensuring that relevant physicians could encounter and engage with its evidence through channels that complemented how they already obtained clinical information.
Building Engagement Around the Physician
Awulu’s work focused on coordinating physician engagement across field and digital channels rather than treating each activity as a separate campaign.
Field detailing remained an important part of the programme because it allowed healthcare professionals to engage directly with product information and raise questions relevant to their practice. Digital activity extended that engagement beyond individual visits, creating additional opportunities for physicians to encounter information about the brand.
Awulu approached those channels as parts of the same physician journey. A physician encountering Entresto through a field interaction and later through a digital channel should not experience two disconnected conversations. The objective was to make communication coherent across touchpoints while allowing each channel to serve a different purpose.
The approach also recognized that physicians were not necessarily at the same stage of engagement with the brand. Someone encountering information about the therapy for the first time did not necessarily require the same communication as a physician already familiar with the evidence and seeking more detailed information.
“Reaching a physician is not the same as engaging one,” Awulu said. “You have to understand what information is useful at that point in the relationship and which channel gives you the best opportunity to provide it.”
Connecting Field and Digital Engagement
The programme combined face-to-face physician engagement with targeted digital activity.
The field component provided opportunities for direct scientific discussion, while digital outreach extended the programme to additional touchpoints and reinforced communication between field interactions. Rather than asking which channel should replace another, the approach considered how they could work together.
This required coordination beyond any individual activity. Commercial teams needed visibility into how physicians were responding, which activities were generating stronger engagement and where communication was losing momentum.
Awulu worked across those elements, helping align physician outreach, digital activity and performance measurement around a common engagement objective.
The result was a demand-generation programme designed around the physician rather than around a single promotional channel.
Measuring While the Programme Ran
An important part of Awulu’s approach was using performance information while the programme was still underway.
Engagement data, audience-response patterns and campaign performance were reviewed during execution. This allowed the team to identify where physicians were responding more strongly and where activities required adjustment.
Resources could then follow performance. Activities producing stronger engagement could receive greater attention, while weaker activities could be modified rather than continuing unchanged until the campaign ended.
“The value of measurement is not simply knowing what happened after a campaign,” Awulu said. “It is being able to use what you are learning to make a better decision while the work is still happening.”
The programme ultimately recorded an approximately 35 percent increase in lead generation. A lead is a commercial measure of interest or engagement, and its precise meaning depends on the programme’s definition and tracking process. The reported increase therefore measures physician engagement with the programme rather than an increase in prescribing, medicine access or patient outcomes.
What the result does show is that the coordinated approach increased the number of healthcare professionals progressing into measurable engagement with the brand.
From Campaign Measurement to Commercial Decision-Making
The work reflects a broader shift in pharmaceutical commercialization.
Commercial teams increasingly have access to CRM systems, digital channels, and campaign analytics, but those technologies do not create value simply by generating more information. Their commercial usefulness depends on whether the information changes what the organization does.
Awulu’s approach connected measurement with execution. Information generated through physician interactions and campaign activity informed subsequent decisions about outreach, allowing the programme to adapt rather than remain fixed.
This made analytics part of the commercial process rather than merely a retrospective reporting function.
The programme also depended on coordination across commercial, medical, analytics and field teams. Awulu’s contribution centered on connecting physician insight with commercial execution, helping align field and digital engagement and using performance information to inform adjustments as the programme progressed.
What the Programme Demonstrated
The Entresto initiative demonstrated that physician engagement is more than a question of how frequently a pharmaceutical company communicates.
Different physicians may be at different stages of consideration. Different channels serve different purposes. Performance information can reveal where engagement is strengthening or weakening. The commercial task is to connect those pieces into a coherent approach and respond to what the evidence shows.
For Awulu, the programme brought those elements together: physician insight, coordinated field and digital engagement, ongoing measurement and adaptation during execution. Its reported 35 percent increase in lead generation provided a measurable indication of stronger healthcare-professional engagement.
Awulu left Novartis Nigeria in April 2025 and is now pursuing his MBA at Arizona State University, with a focus on Marketing and Business Analytics. The programme builds on his pharmaceutical commercialization experience and provides a broader business context for the marketing and analytical work that has shaped his career.
The Entresto programme remains an example of that approach in practice: understanding how physicians engage, coordinating commercial activity around those patterns and using performance information to improve the decisions that follow.
