Top 5 Metrics Every Life Sciences Business Should Be Benchmarking

In the highly regulated and competitive life sciences industry, particularly within pharmaceuticals, comparing your company practices against the industry is not just beneficial—it’s essential. Pharmaceutical companies operate in an environment where precision, compliance, and efficiency directly affect patient safety and commercial success. Benchmarking critical performance metrics enables businesses to make informed decisions, proactively manage risks, and sustain a competitive advantage. This post outlines the top five metrics every life sciences company should benchmark to drive compliance, enhance operational effectiveness, and ensure sustainable growth in today’s complex pharmaceutical landscape.

Meal Limits

There are several factors to take into consideration when determining whether to set a meal limit as a company policy, and if so, the amount to set it as. PhRMA Code permits meals in connection with informational presentations, however the meals must be “modest as judged by local standards”. Additionally, some states have laws pertaining to meal limits as well. For example, in New Jersey the law allows prescribers to accept modest meals provided by manufacturers through promotional activities. A 'modest meal' refers to food or refreshments provided to a prescriber, with the 2023-2024 limits being set to $19.00 for breakfast or lunch and $40.00 for dinner. When making the determination, it’s not only important to consider industry codes, state laws, but also benchmarking to ensure your limits fall within range of other pharmaceutical companies so you don’t risk being an outlier.

Sign-In Sheets

You either use them, or you don’t. You’ve got paper or electronic. You’re chasing down healthcare professionals (HCPs) that didn’t sign in, or maybe you’re not. It seems no matter how long they’ve been around, there’s still always questions being asked on how to do sign-in sheets correctly. Sign-in sheets help ensure you’re abiding by the aforementioned meal limits, so it’s important they’re done correctly. By benchmarking, you can gain insight into how other companies manage sign-in sheets at their meals and events, allowing you to develop similar processes that help minimize risk.

Sampling

The Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA) states that samples may be distributed to a practitioner licensed to prescribe the drug to be sampled. While it’s easy to make the determination whether to sample some HCPs, for others, such as many of the mid-levels, it gets much trickier. Naturopaths are recognized in about half the states, and those that are able to prescribe are generally limited to a formulary created by the respective state board. Additionally, most of those states also require the naturopath to be in a collaborative practice with a physician. This requires regularly checking the formulary to ensure your drugs are on it, as well as that the appropriate collaborative requirements are in place. Another example is pharmacists, who in some states have gained authority to prescribe certain things like opioid antagonists and contraceptives. However, many states don’t use the term “prescribe” and instead use language stating the pharmacist may “order”, “furnish”, or “administer”. In making determinations as to whether to sample certain HCPs, benchmarking can help you determine whether other companies are doing so, which can help you gauge the risk of providing samples to certain mid-levels with various restrictions and requirements.

Unique State Requirements

Ohio TDDD, Massachusetts MCSR, so many acronyms, and requirements, to keep track of! The industry erupted with questions last year about the Massachusetts Controlled Substances Registration, a unique controlled substance registration, as all Rx drugs that are not scheduled are considered a Schedule VI controlled Substance in the state. The registration is location specific, which begs many questions when determining sampling eligibility for practitioners with multiple offices and practice locations. When it comes to navigating unique state requirements, benchmarking how other companies are handling them can help ensure your practices align with the industry, and if not, allows you to reassess your strategies to ensure compliance.

Registration of Field Employees

Many states require special registrations of your field employees, ranging from states like Louisiana and Connecticut having lobbyist registrations, to states (and cities,) like Oregon and Chicago with detailer licenses. All the states have various thresholds before registration or licensure is required. For example, in Chicago licensure of pharmaceutical sales representatives is required for representatives who market or promote pharmaceuticals to HCPs within Chicago for 15 days or more a year. While some of the requirements are straightforward to understand, building out processes to keep track of frequency, the registration processes themselves, as well as reporting where required, is another avenue that should be considered benchmarking, and seeing how other companies are handling these requirements for their field employees. To help ease your benchmarking, feel free to contact us about our benchmarking tool: Benchmark IQ, so you can survey industry professionals from companies of all sizes, access archival data, anonymously contact state boards, and more!