Secondary data is that which already exists and has been collected by someone else for another purpose. Secondary research involves the investigation of secondary sources of data by experienced business analysts and consultants with deep therapy area knowledge.

Sources of secondary data can come from within the company itself – this is known as internal secondary data. External secondary data, on the other hand, is data that has been published by other organisations such as:

• Syndicated reports
• Decision resources
• Datamonitor
• General sources
• PubMed
• Lancet, NEJM
• Medscape
• Disease specific sites:
• USRDS, OMIM
• Current treatments – syndicated
• Therapy monitors
• Syndicated patient diaries
• Current treatments – ad-hoc
• Primary market research
• Custom patient diaries
• CDC - Center for Disease control - USA
• Future competition
• IDdB, PharmaProject, R&D Focus and TrialTrove
• Ad-hoc competitive intelligence

Secondary research – background information:

Context /environmental analysis:

Context and environmental analysis involves desk research to establish the base case for each project. Topics may include disease background, epidemiology, competitive landscape, and meta-analysis of scientific literature.

Semiotics

Semiotic analysis involves desk research to establish how a symbolic system works. By de-coding symbols across brands, products, design, communications and popular culture we can uncover new insights for the client.

It can be used to:

• Support creativity at different stages from identification of the most potential codes, values or symbols for a brand or product to evaluation of concepts and draft communication materials.
  
  • Concept creation and development
  • Creative development
  • Name/concept generation
  • New product development
  • Packaging, product and design analysis/development analysis of existing media texts
• Create brand or product identity
  
  • Advertisement testing
  • Brand audit
  • Development analysis
  • Positioning studies
• Understand the evolution of sensory codes related to a specific market and figure out potential future directions
  
  • Cultural analysis
  • Competitive strategies