2011

In a recent blog post, PhRMA said 'Without Promotion Research will be Useless.' To support its case, PhRMA cited 'an interesting opinion editorial' in the latest edition of the Annals of Emergency Medicine -- the medical journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). In the op-ed, entitled 'Limiting Gifts, Harming Patients,' Emory University economist Paul Rubin, Ph.D. expressed concern that ACEP policy regarding Gifts to Emergency Physicians from Industry 'could have the unfortunate effect of limiting the exchange of critical information between medicine makers and physicians about the benefits and risks of new medicines, how to use them properly and how best to diagnose the right candidates for particular treatments.'

The pharmaceutical industry has been very generous in making payments to physicians. Last year (2010), for example, a mere dozen pharmaceutical companies paid $760 million to physicians and other health care providers for consulting, speaking, research and expenses. On average, how much do you think that comes to for every physician in the U.S.?

Pharma social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube may lack patient-centered information and can also be sources of misleading information that could potentially do more harm than good.

Pharmaceutical marketers have jumped on the mobile application bandwagon as more and more companies roll out health-related applications for smartphones and touchpads such as Apple's iPhone and iPad. But will the FDA regulate certain smartphone apps as medical devices? This article discusses the regulatory and other issues associated with pharma developed or sponsored health apps.

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #5 (10 MARCH 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

No doubt you've heard that as of August 15, 2011, Facebook opened up comments on ALL pharma pages with some exceptions. That means that the pharmaceutical industry will no longer be able to shut off comments on their Facebook pages.

Boehringer-Ingelheim (BI) stands out in its attempt to stand out from the social(ist) cookie-cutter crowd of pharma FB pages. Shows what you can do with dedicated resources and creativity.

All pharma companies face a communications crisis that rests on the changing role of the medical sales representative. This evolution has a direct impact on the obligations of the pharma marketing organizations to be both proactive and responsive in helping to protect their organizations from the threat of non-compliance. What can marketing do? This article offers a few thoughts from a physician's point.

This article focuses on Adobe Connect for eDetailing, a specific collaboration between Adobe and ConnectSolutions, a leading provider of private cloud deployments of web conferencing and collaboration solutions.

This article reports the results of an informal Weber Shandwick survey regarding social media guidelines recently published by the British pharmaceutical industry regulators. It includes advice for how to innovate online without waiting for more specific guidelines from regulators.