by Jean Bedard, CEO, Circulo Pharma
We’ve seen it too many times.
You look at your warehouse inventory or a rep opens a supply closet or locker and finds stacks of printed sales materials—expired, unused, untouched. Entire boxes of brochures that never made it into an HCP meeting. A brand refresh made them obsolete. A new indication came out. A regulation changed. Material expired. And just like that, thousands of dollars’ worth of materials went straight to waste.
It’s a story we often hear from our pharmaceutical clients.
And it’s costing companies more than they think—in dollars,storage costs, compliance risk, operational headaches, and even environmental impact.
When 90% of Marketing Content Goes Unused…
According to the American Marketing Association, up to 90% of marketing content is never utilized by sales teams. We believe it—because we’ve helped companies dig through the piles of printed material collecting dust in field offices and warehouses.
Here’s what we’ve learned from working directly with pharma sales and marketing teams:
- Content isn’t aligned with the sales process. Materials don’t support the full buyer journey, so reps skip them.
- Sales and marketing work in silos. When marketing creates content without input from the representative, it often misses the mark.
- Reps can’t find what they need. Without a centralized system, time is wasted digging through SharePoint folders or email threads.
- Content becomes outdated fast. Compliance updates, expired materials, label changes, or shifts in messaging occur frequently in the pharmaceutical industry.
- Bulk printing locks you in. Once a piece is printed, you’re committed—even if it’s outdated tomorrow.
These challenges aren’t just frustrating—they’re expensive. That’s where Circulo comes in.
What We Built to Solve This: Circulo’s Portal and Print-on-Demand System
After hearing these pain points from dozens of pharmaceutical brands, we developed a solution to address them: the Circulo Sales Enablement Portal. And it’s not just another asset library—it’s an integrated platform designed for how pharma reps actually work.
Here’s how it helps:
Print-on-Demand That Actually Saves Money
Our clients no longer have to order 1,000 brochures, hoping reps use half. With Circulo, they order only what they need, when they need it. Whether that’s one copy or 25, the platform handles it instantly, with built-in approval workflows, branding controls, and compliance safeguards. No more bulk orders. No more waste. No more “oops, that was the old version.”
Automatic Recalls of Outdated Materials
When a piece of content becomes outdated—due to regulatory updates, label changes, or revised messaging—Circulo automatically pulls it from rep access, ensuring no outdated materials are ever used in the field. This minimizes compliance risk and protects your brand.
Real-Time Order Tracking
Sales and ops teams get complete visibility into what’s being ordered and used. You’ll finally know which pieces work—and which ones are just taking up space.
Integrated Digital and Print Content
Whether a rep needs a digital e-detail or a printed handout, it’s all in one place. The platform supports remote detailing, sampling, printing, and feedback collection, all within a secure, role-based system.
Seamless Sample Ordering with Sales Materials
Reps can order compliant sales materials and accompanying drug samples in one step—streamlining the fulfillment process and reducing administrative friction. This ensures timely HCP engagements and better sample distribution tracking.
The Case Study: How One Pharma Brand Saved Big
One of our clients—an established mid-size pharma company—was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on print materials. When they partnered with Circulo, we helped them uncover just how much was being wasted.
By transitioning to Circulo’s portal and print-on-demand system, they:
- Cut print waste by more than 70%
- Reduced fulfillment costs
- Improved rep satisfaction and usage rates
- Avoided compliance issues from outdated materials
- Saved hundreds of thousands in the first year
You can read the full case study here.
Waste Hurts More Than Just Your Budget
Print waste is a silent drain on pharma operations. It ties up budgets, clogs your supply chain, and increases your carbon footprint. And in today’s ESG-focused environment, that’s not just a bad look—it’s a real liability.
Consider this:
- Pharma produces 52 megatonnes of CO₂ annually—the equivalent of 11 million cars1
- A large chunk of that comes from logistics and printed material waste
- Sales reps spend up to 25% of their time just looking for or recreating content
Shifting to a more agile, print-smart model isn’t just good for business—it’s good for the planet.
Smarter Forecasting Means Less Waste—In More Ways Than One
Print materials aren’t the only thing pharma companies tend to overproduce. Drug samples, packaging, and even full inventories of product can pile up due to outdated demand planning models.
One of the most impactful shifts we’ve seen across our pharma partners is the move toward better demand forecasting and just-in-time fulfillment for sales and marketing materials.
Rather than relying on large, upfront print runs, teams are now using Circulo’s platform to print and ship only what’s needed, when it’s needed. This eliminates costly overproduction and drastically reduces the risk of materials becoming obsolete before they’re ever used.
It’s a more agile, responsive approach to supporting the field—one that aligns production with real demand and ensures reps always have current, compliant materials at their fingertips.
Combined with streamlined ordering, real-time usage visibility, and automatic removal of outdated content, this strategy helps reduce waste, save budget, and speed up the entire fulfillment cycle.
We’ve seen the same inefficiencies in broader product planning. In clinical trials and product launches, conservative “just-in-case” forecasts often lead to significant overage—sometimes as much as 50–60% of trial medicine goes unused. The same challenge plays out with printed collateral: too much is produced upfront, too little is actually used.
By aligning inventory management with smarter forecasting practices, our clients are:
- Printing fewer, more relevant materials
- Distributing drug samples based on actual HCP demand
- Reducing fulfillment and storage costs
- Enabling direct-to-rep and even direct-to-patient fulfillment models
It’s not just a shift in process—it’s a smarter, more sustainable way to run commercial operations. And when you apply that mindset to both product and content, the impact multiplies fast.
Time to Clean Out the Closet
If your sales team is still sitting on stacks of unused print collateral, it’s time to rethink your approach. And trust us—we’ve been there with our clients, literally cleaning out lockers and closets filled with expensive, obsolete materials.
With Circulo’s portal and print-on-demand system, you don’t need to overprint “just in case.” You print what you need, when you need it, and make it easy for reps to find and use.
It’s a smarter way to sell. A safer way to stay compliant. And a more sustainable way to operate.
Ready to make the switch? Contact us.
1) https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/article/supply-chain-waste-in-the-pharma-industry/185895/
