EXDENSUR — Marketing Director Pitch
GSK · Competitive Interview
[Slide 1] Good morning. (pause) Thank you for the time. I'm here for the Marketing Director role, and I want to show you exactly how I'd launch and grow EXDENSUR in China. (pause) I won't read the slides — I'll walk you through the patient reality, where we can win, and what I'd do in the first year. (emphasize) Let's start.
[Slide 1] The question on the table is simple: how do we promote EXDENSUR for eosinophilic asthma — patients who stay uncontrolled on medium-to-high dose ICS-LABA, with the eosinophil phenotype. (pause) It's a narrow, severe group. But that narrowness is our advantage: it's where the unmet need is deepest, and where a differentiated product can win fastest. (pause) My whole plan is built around that one reality — start narrow, win the segment completely, then expand. I'd rather own a small segment outright than spread thin across a big one and lose.
[Slide 2] Everything follows from the patient journey, so let's look at it carefully. (pause) Two numbers tell the whole story. Patients arrive with very high expectations — about 70% expect to feel "normal, like before IMT." But only 16% actually get there. (pause) That gap between expectation and result is the problem we exist to close. Then the behavior breaks down. 59% of patients don't follow up on time. Treatment doesn't last — inhaled-agent duration of therapy is only around 120 days, and the biologic behaves the same way. At home, self-management is poor: wrong inhaler use, can't stay on medication, stopping the drug on their own. (pause) And patients treat early cough themselves, only going to hospital when symptoms turn severe — so they arrive late and already uncontrolled. The cost of uncontrolled asthma is heavy — shame about frequent ICS use, anxiety, work absences, poor sleep, restricted diet, limited social life. On the clinical side, lung function is checked in 74% of visits, blood tests in 84%, chest imaging in 70%, and BEC — blood eosinophils — is the inflammation marker we track; the first visit usually brings a three-month return, while biologics mean monthly injections. (pause) The key weakness: when patients are uncontrolled, the revisit assessment is incomplete — it relies mainly on what the patient reports — and biologics get used too late. (slower) Late diagnosis, weak assessment, short duration — that is the single biggest barrier in the entire journey, and it's exactly where our plan has to bite.
[Slide 3] So what are the promotion challenges, and how do we answer each one? (pause) Four barriers stand out. One — biologics are started too late, because uncontrolled patients aren't assessed fully. Two — access is poor. Three — HCPs don't yet know the product and worry about efficacy stability and safety. Four — they assume biologics are expensive and need long-term injection. (pause) The reason biologics lag is structural: the revisit exam is incomplete and leans on patient-reported symptoms, so step-up therapy and biologics get deferred. My answers map to the barriers one-to-one. First, BEC greater than 150 becomes the initiation timing — we start the conversation earlier, fully within label, never above guidance. Second, redefine "cost": not just the drug price, but the patient's total cost — travel, ER visits, lost work — and fix it with the PAP patient-assistance program. Third, close the knowledge gap with real education and a multi-channel message that repeats our key points. (pause) And the most important move — we start with super-responders for bio-naïve HCPs, so they can feel what real control looks like versus ICS-LABA. Experience is what changes prescription behavior. We pair that with the DAC adherence project to keep patients on therapy. These conclusions are backed by the 2025 SA Patient Study and the 2024 qualitative asthma patient-journey report, plus our own field work.
[Slide 4] Now the opportunity — and this is the exciting part. (pause) Patients on traditional ICS plus a short-acting biologic have clear unmet needs. They hope to extend the injection interval, because every shot means hours in hospital. They hope for further adverse-event reduction. And they're afraid of the needle. (pause) Injection convenience can actually change which biologic a patient chooses — it's a real decision factor, not a nice-to-have. And here's the headline number: when we show them the injection frequency could fall to two per year, 87% — both naive patients and those who've already used biologics — say they're very interested. (slower) Eighty-seven percent. That is the opening we build the whole plan around. HCPs already recognize the strong efficacy and safety profile — they're just reserved because they lack practical experience. That's a fixable problem. We give them the experience, one super-responder at a time, and the 87% patient pull does the rest.
[Slide 5] And this is precisely why EXDENSUR fits what doctors actually value. (pause) The data is clear, and it should guide everything we say. HCPs name symptom improvement and exacerbation control as the key market-value drivers — the two things that decide whether they use a biologic at all. (pause) EXDENSUR shows superiority on exactly those two: efficacy and exacerbation control. So the product's strength and the doctor's value driver are the same thing. When strength equals value driver, our message isn't invented — it's credible, and marketing gets simple: we say it often, and we prove it clearly with real cases.
[Slide 6] That brings us to differentiation, and it's a clean story. (pause) EXDENSUR is the first and only biologic to deliver ultra-long-acting asthma protection in just two doses a year. (slower) Two doses. A year. Nothing else in the class does that. A patient said it best: "Getting an injection every few months would be ideal — the time saved from hospital visits makes it worthwhile." (pause) This is exactly what the patient needs: simple, convenient, reliable. (emphasize) One note — this slide is confidential, internal only; please don't distribute it onward.
[Slide 7] Finally, the market plan that ties it all together. (pause) Right now we must lift our voice and expand brand awareness. The engine is SEA: we run 150 sponsorship meetings, plus 49 collaboration and T2 broadcast meetings. (pause) Every one ties back to three levers — improve access, expand multi-channel share-of-voice with our key message, and strengthen doctor-patient education. Multi-channel means we repeat "two doses a year, proven on the outcomes HCPs care about" across meetings, digital, and KOL voices, so it sticks. (pause) I'd run those three levers hard and measure them in new prescriptions and BEC testing, not just meeting counts. Concretely: in the first 90 days, lift BEC testing and super-responder cases; by year one, turn that into a steady new-prescription curve we report monthly. (emphasize) Numbers, not hopes.
[Close] So that's the picture. (pause) Narrow start, win the severe uncontrolled segment, lead with "two doses a year," prove it with super-responders, and measure everything in new prescriptions and BEC testing. I've run this kind of launch before, and I'm ready to do it for EXDENSUR — now. Thank you. I'd love your questions.