Challenge:
A clinical-stage company developing novel transdermal patch technology asked us to validate two potential hormone replacement therapy products with KOLs. The main focus was to evaluate the need, demand and performance attributes of a testosterone patch, and the demand among prescribing physicians for oestrogen or combination oestrogen/progesterone with improved adhesion and lower adhesive residue properties.
Solution:
Alacrita conducted a focussed, qualitative primary research study with European KOLs to better understand the unmet need and prospective opportunity in Europe for improved testosterone and E/P HRT patches.
We followed our standard process of preparing KOL pre-reads and a discussion guide in collaboration with the client team, and via in-depth telephone interviews, we assessed:
- Level of unmet need in each patient population
- Aspects of differentiation versus standard of care that would be required by KOLs to address the identified unmet needs
- Current and future prescribing trends
- Prevalence estimates, and for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) specifically, recognition of the problem as a medical condition
- Usage of HRT
- Usage of testosterone
- Preference for patch products
The deliverable was a slide deck describing our findings which we presented to the client in an interactive workshop session.