SPOTLIGHT: Sales reps face rising tide of inaccessible docs

Pharma sales reps are finding an increasingly hostile world out there. The fraction of doctors willing to meet reps regularly has dropped significantly. And the group unwilling to see reps at all has grown even faster. According to a new report from marketing consultants ZS Associates, only 58 percent of doctors can be described as "rep accessible"--i.e., they meet with at least 70 percent of sales folk who drop by. That's down from 71 percent last year, a drop of almost 13 percentage points, or an 18 percent decline. Meanwhile, inaccessible doctors now account for 9 percent of the total, up from 6 percent last year. That's a 50 percent increase. FiercePharma