2004

The Indian pharmaceutical market is the world's fourth largest by volume (8% of global total) and thirteenth largest by value (less than 1% of global total).

Dear Reader, Welcome to the archive of the June, 2004 issue of Pharma Marketing News! Vol. 3, No. 6: June 2004 - CONTENTS...

In a keynote address at a recent ePharma Summit conference held in Philadelphia, PA, Kevin Hutchinson, CEO and President of SureScripts, a company founded by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) and the National Community Pharmacists Association, looked at the changing landscape and inevitability of electronic prescribing (ePrescribing or eRx) and the implications and opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry.

A panel entitled What Role Should Pharma Play in ePrescribing and the Point-of-Care? at a recent ePharma Summit conference held in Philadelphia, PA, discussed the issues facing pharmaceutical companies as electronic prescribing (ePrescribing or eRx) threatens to upset the "balance of power" between physicians, pharma companies, and payers at the point-of-care.

Most pharmaceutical firms have piloted eDetailing programs and scaled them successfully. However, although Traditional eDetailing has been around for at least 5 years, marketers must expand the definition of eDetailing. To this end Croom offers a Best Practice Guide for eDetailing to help pharma marketers optimize the reach and impact of eDetailing.

Targeted therapies, based upon genotype, require a new brand model that addresses smaller segments of the population. This model, according to Francoise Simon, professor of marketing at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, requires a fundamental reorganization of the biopharma value chain, from discovery to manufacturing and marketing.

The TV DTC ad campaigns for Cialis, Levitra, and Viagra seem to be pushing the envelope with regard to sexually-explicit themes and characters. Recently, we asked Pharma Marketing News readers and Pharma Marketing Network Web site visitors to give us their opinions about whether or not recent ED TV ads were too sexually explicit or focusing on a younger and younger audience.

Why is pharma so conservative when it comes to using technology for marketing purposes? Is it ROI concerns? Not invented here syndrome? Or is it something else?

Yahoo's record earnings and Google's IPO announcement are hot financial stories, but they also herald an important trend that is changing the way marketers think about the interactive channel. Search Engine Marketing, also known as SEM or Search, is one of the fastest-growing e-marketing strategies today.

As US pharmaceutical companies search for best practices to battle patient drop-off, their European counterparts have overcome Byzantine regulations and reduced margins to implement strikingly effective compliance programs.