Vol. 9, No. 10: DECEMBER 2010 – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CONTENTS
- Up Front: Pharma’s 2010 Christmas Wish List for Santa
- SURVEY: Should Pharma Hire Online “Patient Opinion Leaders?”
- New Media Privacy Issues & Online Health Marketing
- Pfizer’s Latest Lyrica DTC Ad Should Be Cited By FDA as Misleading
- Certain Physician-Industry Relationships Have Declined Dramatically
- Pfizer’s Sales Reps Have 48 Hours to Out Deliver eSampling Program
Up Front
Pharma’s 2010 Christmas Wish List for Santa
A few people helped me put together a short wish list for the US pharmaceutical industry to send to Santa this year. There are only a few items on the list so far that merit Santa’s urgent attention.
Included on the list: FDA social media guidelines (Duh!), pharma-friendly biosimilar regulations, increased drug pipeline, and others that you can read about in this OpEd piece, which provides not only my take on these issues, but useful data and links to resources.
Santa may not be able to solve all these problems, but it’s worth a shot!
You can still vote or write-in your item to include on the list (here). I will keep the survey going even beyond Christmas because I’m interested in learning more about what you think are the pressing problems that will face the pharmaceutical industry in 2011 and beyond.
Read on…this article is AVAILABLE NOW here:
www.news.pharma-mkting.com/PMNews_910_UpFront.pdf
Survey: Should Pharma Hire Online “Patient Opinion Leaders?”
What are the issues involving transparency and conflicts of interest that may arise if and when pharma companies pay individual “Patient Opinion Leaders” (POLs) to help manage their engagement with patients online? What best practices should govern pharma’s collaboration with POLs? Should the industry develop guidelines for their interactions with POLs via social networks (eg, develop a “Patient Collaboration Transparency Policy”)?
To help answer these and other questions, please respond to the following online survey: Should Pharma Hire Online “Patient Opinion Leaders”
Thank you for your participation. New Media Privacy Issues & Online Health Marketing
Privacy Groups Focus on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Recently, online privacy issues have been in the news as Congress exams whether it should enact legislation requiring a do-not-track function in Web browsers to allow consumers to opt out of the extensive data collection by Internet companies. The Wall Street Journal, for example, published a series of investigative articles on online privacy under heading “What They Know.”
What you should know is that the current focus on privacy in the new media advertising world may have a very substantial impact on marketers.
In a complaint filed on November 23, 2010, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), U.S. PIRG, Consumer Watchdog, and the World Privacy Forum called on the FTC to investigate “unfair and deceptive adver-tising practices” that consumers face as they seek health information and services online.
This article is a summary of the CDD complaint and a review of the issues. The article also ncludes a compilation of more than two dozen “innovative” online marketing products/solutions mentioned in the CDD complaint.
Topic headings include:
- Online Privacy in the News
- FTC Says Self-Regulation Has Failed
- Cookies Are a Joke!
- CDD’s Criticisms of Online Marketing Tactics
- The Issues Transcend Healthcare Marketing
- PMN survey results (chart)
- CDD Demands that FTC Take Action
- Hype vs. Reality
- The Relevance of HIPAA
- FTC May Weigh In on FDA’s Social Media Guidelines
- Empowered Patients or Duped Targets?
- Risks of Online Healthcare Marketing
- Being Pro-Patient is the Bottom Line
- A Cornucopia of Digital Marketing Solutions
Order and pay for this reprint now using your credit card…
ONLY $4.95Download PDF file immediately after paying:
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Recent Posts to Pharma Marketing Blog by Pharmaguy
Pfizer’s Latest Lyrica DTC Ad Should Be Cited By FDA as Misleading
Do you have “chronic widespread MUSCLE pain?” That’s the question asked in a Lyrica direct-to-consumer (DTC) print ad in a recent issue of Prevention magazine.
“The answer may be over-active NERVES,” says the ad. The implication is that Lyrica treats “muscle pain” caused by “over-active nerves.” The ad also shows how Lyrica “calms those nerves.”
I think that the claims made in this ad are speculative hocus pocus and not based on any reputable science at all!
Of course, no everyone agrees with me as is evident in the comments made to this post and on Facebook. The resulting discussion has focused on the issue of what kinds of scientific data can be used to make DTC ad claims. The FDA should be interested in this case.
What do you think? Read this post and let me know. http://bit.ly/gC0QWj
Ad Execs Not Viewed as Innovative By Americans Says AstraZeneca Survey
Sorry to break this to you, but Americans don’t think advertising executives are very innovative.
The AZ survey shows that Americans think advertising executives are only as innovative as teachers, but much less innovative than doctors, artists, engineers, or scientists.
Read more here: http://bit.ly/gQWTKh
Pfizer’s Sales Reps Have 48 Hours to Out Deliver eSampling Program. #FAIL!
Pfizer has become the latest drug company to offer doctors the option of using the Internet to order free samples of its drugs, a trend illustrating the diminished role of sales representatives, whose ranks continue to decrease. The service is called SamplesDirect.
The fear among Pfizer reps was that online sampling would only further erode their job function. But Pfizer reached a compromise with its reps: when a physician places an e-order, it’s flagged to his or her sales rep, who has 48 hours to step in and personally take over the order. If the rep doesn’t act, the order is filled electronically.
Whether or not eSampling assuages the fears of current reps, it does not bode well for the sales force in general and for hiring new reps to replace the old. I also believe that physicians may be ticked off about Pfizer’s “compromise” with its sales reps.
Find out why I feel this way by reading this post: http://bit.ly/dFfMxT
