HCPs vary greatly in their willingness to try new drugs. Some doctors are ready to prescribe a new product to their patients as soon as it is launched to the market and others adopt it much later. Adoption is the decision of the doctors to become a regular prescriber of the drug and add it to his personal formulary.

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Everett Rogers proposes that adopters of any new innovation or idea (new drugs in this case) can be categorized as:

• Innovators (2.5%)
• Early adopters (13.5%)
• Early majority (34%)
• Late majority (34%)
• laggards (16%)

Plotting the percentage of each group on a curve results in what is known as The Diffusion of Innovations model which is a logistic curve graphically presenting the cumulative percentage of adopters over time

In other words, few physicians will prescribe the new drug first, then few more, followed by majority of physicians then those who are suspicious will use it.

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Influence of drug characteristics on rate of adoptions:

Kotler (2018) identified 5 characteristics influencing the rate of adoption of new products. these characteristics are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility, communicability.

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Decision process for prescribing a new drug:

Adoption process  is the mental process through which the doctor learn about a new drug for the first time and make decision on whether to prescribe it. There are five stages in the adoption process (awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption).

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References:

1. Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2018). Principles of Marketing, 17th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
2. Rogers, E. M. (2010). Diffusion of innovations. Simon and Schuster.

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