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Being alone in a foreign country can make anyone feel like a fish out of water, especially when you don’t speak the language. One of the many things that can magnify this problem is realizin

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

g how badly you need to find a restroom.

Unfamiliar with the customs, the language, and the people, you try your best to describe what you need, relying on hand gestures and facial expressio

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ns. For some reason, you find yourself speaking louder and slower, as if it could help others understand your foreign words. Your desperation and discomfort well up and you can barely hold

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

back the tears. Then, miraculously, you find someone who speaks perfect English.

You burst with joy, telling this stranger all about your restroom crisis. In just a few minutes, you have a

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

new friend – someone who understands you and, most importantly, can help you with your problem. You feel connected and at home, simply because you speak the same language.

The sales world

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

is no different. As salespeople spend each day immersed in the details of their job, they begin to pick up their own language. This language consists of specifications and insider talk that

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

strays from the basics of customer usage and focuses on pages per minute, horsepower and reach. This techno-babble language becomes second nature, as if everybody in the world understands,

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

or cares, about these types of details.

Salespeople become so comfortable with their own language that they fail to realize it has created a barrier between themselves and their customers.

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

The customer doesn’t know how to speak the techno-babble language of the salesperson, and the salesperson is too engulfed in their own world to understand the meaning behind customers’ concer

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

ns and questions.

This problem of language is often most evident when the salesperson and customer make contact for the first time. Usually, customers want more information, but don’t know

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

enough about the product or service to know what kind of questions to ask. They ask questions like, “How much is it?” or “How fast is it?” because these are simple and familiar questions they

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

can use to get the conversation going.

Instead of discovering the intent behind the customer’s questions, the salesperson responds too quickly and too literally. They immediately tell the

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

customer how much or how fast it is and assume that was all the customer wanted to know.

Statements such as “I don’t want to spend too much,” are interpreted by the salesperson as “I want so

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

mething cheap.” To the customer, however, those same words could mean, “I don’t want to spend more than I need to, but I still want a product that will do everything I want it to.”

The sale

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

sperson has the all information the customer really wants and needs when making a purchase decision, yet the language barrier prevents the salesperson from fully understanding what is being a

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

sked.

A lot of meaning can be lost because of this language barrier. The distance between what is said and what is understood can be wide, unless the salesperson changes the way they listen

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

. Learning to listen with the intent of gaining true understanding, rather than just responding, can help break the language barrier.

As a salesperson, it is your job to discover your custo

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

mer’s meaning and ask questions that will promote understanding. It may be easy to subconsciously lump customers who sound alike into similar categories, assuming they all need the same thin

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

g. Realize that each customer is unique and try to understand the distinctive concerns and needs of that customer.

Your customers will be relieved and excited to find one salesperson who is

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

willing to make the effort to understand them fully. With understanding comes comfort, friendship and trust – everything you need to build a great relationship between you and your customer

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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This article is the second in a series of three that addresses best practices in corporate naming.

Language came from an origin, the primitive monkey men of millennia past. Now it is a field so vast in it's sub-branches and technical depth that we don't even know what's cutting anymore.

As a general rule, you can incorporate your business with no tax cost as long as you contribute all of your business's assets and liabilities to a corporation you control.

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