2011

Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority Issues Social Media Guidance for Pharma. The Brits have won the race to issue social media guidance for the drug industry! In April, 2011, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), which oversees the self-regulatory code of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), published 'informal guidance' providing the drug industry advice on how to use online communications.

The Death of the Traditional Pharma Salesman and the Birth of the 'Sales Cyborg.' eDetailing in one form or another seems to be making a comeback since the recession hit the drug industry in 2007 and 2008. Which is the 'chicken' and which is the 'egg'? Did the uptick in adoption of eDetailing technology lead to the recent layoff of pharma reps or were reps laid off because of the economy and subsequently replaced by machines?

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #12 (20 JULY 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

Has It Been Found? What Does It Reveal About Pfizer's Social Media Implementation Plan?. Ray Kerins (@raykerins), Vice President of Worldwide Communications at Pfizer, talks about Pfizer's 'groundbreaking internal Social Media Playbook' but won't show it to us. What can be in the playbook? How many people does Pfizer dedicate to social media? This article discusses those questions and offers a peek into a playbook contender.

While primary care physicians in general are frequent users of the Internet, oncologists see online sources of information as more important than PCPs and therefore may need less personal contact to learn about products. That was just one of the results from the 2011 Digital Life survey of 1,454 physicians summarized is this article.

This article summarizes Eli Lilly's European experience using TeleWeb e-detailing, which combines a personal sales rep phone call with Web site surfing.

A conversation with Monique Levy, VP Research at Manhattan Research, about the changing pharma eDetailing landscape. Ms. Levy discusses how the online pharma promotion landscape has changed, and which types of programs garner the largest audience as well as how the rep relationship is evolving and the role of new technologies such as tablets.

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #8 (28 APRIL 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #17 (10 NOVEMBER 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

When asked what the # 1 concern pharmaceutical marketers have regarding using social media, the adverse event reporting (AER) boogey man is cited most often. The urge to avoid this boogey man at all costs may have more to do with CEO compensation that with fears of rank-an-file marketers.