How to choose a pharma agency in Kazakhstan: 7 criteria
A pharma agency is tested not by beautiful mock-ups but by how it works within restrictions. Does it have a medical editorial team, does the team know what can be said about a prescription drug and to whom, can it speak separately to doctors, pharmacists and patients, and can it show results in sales or prescriptions. Below are seven criteria, questions for the first meeting and red flags.
How pharma differs from other categories
In most categories, an agency only needs to understand the audience and the channels. In pharma, three more things are added:
- The law. Prescription drugs cannot be advertised in the media or to consumers, drug advertising goes through a compliance review, and phrases like “the most effective” or “no side effects” are prohibited. More on this in the article “Pharma marketing in Kazakhstan”.
- The cost of a mistake. An inaccuracy in a text is a risk to the reader's health and to the company's reputation.
- Three audiences. Doctors need data, pharmacists need ready answers for the counter, patients need clear explanations and support. The same material will not work for all three.
That is why an agency that does great work in retail or FMCG can stumble at the very first approval in pharma.
7 selection criteria
1. Medical editorial team. Ask who checks medical claims: in-house editors with a medical background, invited doctors, or no one. Ask to see what checking a text against sources looks like at the agency.
2. Knowledge of regulation. From the first meeting, the agency should understand which formats and channels are allowed for your product: prescription drug, OTC drug, medical device or dietary supplement. A good sign is when restrictions are built into the plan before launch rather than discovered at the approval stage.
3. Experience with three audiences. Check whether the portfolio includes projects for doctors, for pharmacists and for patients. These are three different genres: a newsletter for a neurologist, a guide for a pharmacist at the counter and social media about joint health are made differently.
4. Cases with business results. Reach and views are not the main thing. Look for cases with sales, market share, prescriptions or therapy adherence, and always the period in which the result was achieved.
5. Understanding of the approval process. At a pharma company, materials go through the medical, legal and sometimes global teams. Ask how the agency plans timelines around approvals and how many rounds of revisions it allows for.
6. Local context. In Kazakhstan and Central Asia, languages matter (Kazakh and Russian, sometimes the languages of neighbouring countries), as do regional media and cultural occasions. For example, Ramadan, when diet and daily routine change, is an occasion for useful content about digestive health.
7. A team, not just a sales manager. Meet the people who will run the project: the producer, the editor, the medical editor. In pharma, more depends on them than on the pitch deck.
Questions for the first meeting
- Who on the team is responsible for medical accuracy, and what is their background?
- How do you make sure a piece does not become advertising of a prescription drug to the general public?
- What formats would you propose for doctors, and which for patients?
- Show us a case where content affected sales or prescriptions. Over what period?
- How do you fit into our medical and legal approval process?
- Do you make Kazakh versions yourselves or send them out for translation?
- What metrics would you propose, and what do you consider a realistic result in 3 and 6 months?
Pharma agency or general digital agency
| Criterion | General digital agency | Agency with a pharma practice |
|---|---|---|
| Text review | editor and proofreader | medical editorial team and expert doctors |
| Regulation | learns it as the project goes | builds it into the plan before launch |
| Audiences | consumers | doctors, pharmacists and patients |
| Metrics | reach, engagement, clicks | plus sales, prescriptions, therapy adherence |
| Approvals | one or two rounds with marketing | medical and legal teams, sometimes a global office |
A general agency will do for a pharma company's corporate tasks: employer brand, events, internal communications. Product communication for a drug needs specialised expertise.
Red flags
- The portfolio has not a single project for doctors or pharmacists.
- The agency suggests “viral advertising” of a prescription drug on social media.
- Portfolio texts contain “the most effective”, “guaranteed results”, “no side effects”.
- No one on the team can explain who checks medical claims.
- The cases show only reach, with no period and no link to sales.
What it looks like in practice
A few TELLER Kazakhstan projects where these criteria can be seen in action:
- Patients. The Instagram media “Life on Ultra” for Teraflex Ultra: sport for non-athletes with a trauma surgeon and runner ambassadors. In the first two months, pharmacy sales grew by more than 90%.
- Pharmacists and doctors. A Ramadan newsletter in Kyrgyzstan: evidence-based advice on supporting digestive health during the fast. Sales of three brands grew by 200% compared with the previous Ramadan.
- Two audiences at once. “Pain Navigator” has an open section for patients and a gated one for neurologists, built on evidence-based medicine.
More about how we work with pharma on the TELLER Kazakhstan pharma marketing agency page.
Sources: Pravosite.kz: regulation of healthcare advertising · AdIndex: what has changed in drug advertising