Vol. 8, Issue No. 4: APRIL 2009 – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Social Media: Opportunity or Nightmare? Upfront Commentary
Michaelangelo’s nightmarish painting Last Judgement includes the image of a poor soul being dragged down to Hell by the devil’s agents. That image often comes to mind when I hear proponents of social media trying to persuade pharma marketers to just “dip their toe” in the social media waters. The other image I see is a shark lurking just below the water’s surface!
The April 2009 issue of Pharma Marketing News is focused on social media, patient empowerment (which is powered by social media), and the constraints of regulation.
I present some background on social media usage and discuss how the articles in this issue are related.
Read this entire OpEd piece by John Mack here:
www.news.pharma-mkting.com/PMNews_84_UpFront.pdf Developing Guidelines for Pharma’s Use of the Internet & Social Media Whatever! A Call for a Public Hearing at FDA
Pharmaceutical companies and their agencies are “mulling” over amongstthemselves how the drug industry should engage consumers and physiciansvia social media without violating FDA regulations. They are strugglingbecause the FDA has never issued clear guidelines for how it mayregulate the industry use of social media in the future. Many havecalled upon the FDA to issue such guidelines.
Shouldn’t we makesure that when it comes time for the FDA to actually create a guidancedocument on social media that it does it with input from ALLstakeholders?
This article will present a review of this issuebased upon input received from experts and respondents to the “ShouldFDA Convene a Public Hearing on Use of Social Media by Pharma?” surveyhosted by Pharma Marketing Newsstarting on April 2, 2009. Also included in a review of an ePharmaPioneer Club roundtable discussion on what it’s going to take to enablepharmaceutical marketers to engage in social networks without fear ofadverse event reporting and other regulatory, corporate, and culturalroadblocks.
Topic headings include:
- The 14 Letters were No April Fools’ Joke!
- An Unmet Need for Regulatory Guidance
- FDA, Tear Down This Wall!
- Call for Public Hearing
- Lessons Learned from the “One-Click Rule”
- Lack of Knowledge is No Excuse
- There is a Precedent
- A Clear Path Needed
- Survey Results
- A Moving Target
- The Views of Skeptics
- What Good Can Come from a Public FDA Hearing on Social Media?
- Alternatives to a Public Hearing
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The Empowered Patient What It Means for Pharma Marketers
Selecting the appropriate pharmaceutical product is one of the choicesthat empowered patients can make. But according to Reinhard Angelmar,the Salmon and Rameau Fellow in Healthcare Management and Professor ofMarketing at INSEAD, empowered patients are involved before a drug evenmakes it to the market.
This article will review a presentationmade by Angelmar at the recent eyeforpharma SFE Europe 2009 conferenceheld in Barcelona, Spain. Angelmar makes a case for the drug industryto adopt a patient-centric model in which pharma companies can developunique expertise in decoding the behavior, needs, motivations ofpatients and then use this knowledge as the basis for helpinghealthcare professionals and payers to put into place programs thatachieve better patient outcomes.
Topic headings include:
- The Power of Patient Empowerment
- It Starts with Research
- Degrees of Patient Empowerment
- European Patients are Online
- Influence Over Prescribing
- Patients Determine Compliance
- Patient-Centric Pharma
- Relevance of Social Media
- European Union Barriers
- Relaxed Constraints on Horizon
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Socially Challenged Pharma How Ready is Pharma to Engage In Social Media?
Digital Pharma Europe was ExL Pharma’s first entry into the ‘Old World’hosting an event already well established in the States. It seems theyhave found the time right to see whether the Europeans are like-mindedin the exciting area of new/social/digital media in pharma.
Inthis article Erik van der Zijden — entrepeneur, marketingprofessional, new media evangelist and self-styled “autodidactictechno-nerd” — presents highlights of this conference and his personalpoint of view..
Topic headings include:
- More Focus on Social Media at Conferences
- Old School Digital?
- Pharma Going Social, Slowly
- Best Practices
- Online Physician Communities Will Radically Change Pharma Marketing
- When It Comes to Social Media, Pharma Marketers Inside Pharma are Not Keeping Up with Their Agency Colleagues (Survey Results)
- Enterprise 2.0 and Pharma
- YouTube Genius
- The Future of Digital Pharma
- Will doctors’ social networks radically change pharma marketing & sales? (poll results)
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Report from the Social Pharmer “Unconference” Sowing Seeds of Social Media Change?
One only has to recall the 7-Up “Uncola” campaigns to understand thelimitations of defining something by the absence of certain qualities.But the Social Pharmer Unconference was more refreshing than a fizzysoda exactly because it lacked what causes so many industry conferencesto fall flat: marginally relevant speakers, boring PowerPointpresentations and silent participants. In this article, Amber Benson,Group Strategy Director for IMC2’s Health & Wellness practice,summarizes key presentations made at the April 21, 2009, Social Pharmer”unconference.”
Topic headings include:
- Openness, Transparency and Authenticity
- Developing a Framework
- Final Social Pharmer Thoughts: Coming Back To Transparency
- FDA Regulation: Be Careful What You Wish For
- No Matter How Risk Adverse, You Can Do Something
- How to do it Without Getting Fired
- What Do Patients Want from Pharma Engagement?
- Next Steps
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