ABSTRACT
The concept of customers has changed significantly since we started working in the pharmaceutical industry. We see today's use of customer satisfaction approaches as a surrogate for process management. The concept of the internal marketing and the internal customer was conceptualized by marketing research in an effort to foster improvements in employee customer interactions in the service sector. Legal mandates require study to begin with compound conceptualization, animal model testing, limited human modeling from animal data, and human study in three phases and finally approval of the product with post-approval monitoring. In the private sector, the emphasis was directed towards broad-view concepts such as quality is free, TQM and international harmonization such as the International Standards Organization (ISO) and/or refinements of problem-solving techniques. The customer patient is not expert in self-diagnosis and self-prescription. Some would say that drug development should begin with the patient defining his or her wants and desires in a pharmaceutical compound.
