Why I Own Three Identical Pairs of Pants (and What That Reveals About Pharma Customers)

I’ll admit it: when I find a pair of pants that fit me well, I buy them in bulk. Two, three, sometimes four identical pairs—same color, same size. It’s not particularly rational. After all, I know logically that this brand of pants will still exist next month. Yet I still feel compelled to stock up. Why?

The best explanation I can muster isn’t economic—it’s atavistic. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, a more primitive system is at work: one wired to respond to uncertainty, scarcity, and the risk of future deprivation. The same part of the brain that prepared early humans for droughts, failed harvests, or vanishing herds may now be driving me to hoard chinos. Seven fat years, seven lean years. Better safe than sorry.

This behavior—what I’d term “preemptive purchasing”—is not limited to retail. It shows up everywhere in healthcare too.

Physicians who have had success with a certain therapy often "double down" on that treatment, expanding use across similar patient types. Hospitals over-order medications ahead of regulatory or supply chain uncertainty. Patients ask for extra refills before the holidays. These are not just business decisions; they can also be attributed to biologically-coded behaviors.

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The Evolutionary Code Behind Commercial Behavior

From an evolutionary perspective, humans are not purely reward-seeking. We’re loss-averse, uncertainty-sensitive, and risk-managed. Our ancestors who stored food or tools during times of plenty were more likely to survive lean periods—and this primal and instinctive neural programming endures.

In modern commercial settings, this brain wiring influences how people adopt, use, and stick with products, even in the absence of obvious scarcity. The perception that something might become unavailable can drive accelerated uptake or over-commitment. That instinct to "stock up while you can" is powerful, especially when it comes to trust-based decisions—like selecting a treatment for a complex condition.

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Implications for Pharma and Biotech Strategy

So, how do we effectively and responsibly leverage this insight as commercial leaders?

1. Frame Reliability as a Value Proposition: Position your product or brand not just on efficacy, but on stability. Emphasize supply chain resilience, consistent availability, and manufacturer reliability—especially in markets where shortages have historically occurred.
2. Use Scarcity (Responsibly) in Messaging: When appropriate and ethical, communicate limits around access: early-access programs, limited distribution, or tiered rollout strategies can all tap into a subtle evolutionary response to “get it while you can.”
3. Design for Behavioral Momentum: Once HCPs find something that “fits”—a treatment protocol, a patient response pattern—they may want to repeat it. Make it easy for them to standardize or expand that use, through dosing kits, order sets, or templates that create a feeling of security and efficiency.
4. Evaluate Substitution Aversion: Understand what makes clinicians stick with what they know. If they are “stocking up” on the familiarity of a treatment, it may not just be about clinical data—it may be about psychological safety.

In the end, my pants problem is your customer behavior insight. We all carry within us an innate and ancestral operating system—one that isn’t optimized for spreadsheets, but for survival. The more we align our commercial strategies to those deep-seated human tendencies, the more resonant and resilient our brands will become.