2011

Talk about having your cake and eating it too! Commercial funding of continuing medical education (CME) and the potential for bias appear to concern many physicians, yet only a TINY MINORITY (7%) are willing to pay registration fees to eliminate or offset commercial funding sources, according to a report in the May 9, 2011, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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.?

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.

Lipitor Won't Go Gentle Into that Good Generic Night. Pfizer is taking a number of steps to protect it's Lipitor franchise and it hopes that many patients currently taking Lipitor will remain loyal to the brand.

A discussion with Jonathan Richman, Group Director, Insights and Planning at Possible Worldwide about Facebook's changes to its commenting policies and his recommendations for pharma marketers who wish to develop Facebook pages.

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #4 (23 FEBRUARY 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

Self Care Catalysts' Patient Intelligence Insights Guide™ on Diabetes is the only integrated patient-and consumer-centric report that explores how people suffering from an invisible condition such as diabetes actually circumnavigate their health condition, using the unique Self Care Health Decision Making Dynamics framework™. It is an example of what Grace Soyao, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Self Care Catalysts Inc., a health research and strategy company, means by 'Finding the Consumer within the Patient.'

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #13 (23 AUGUST 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

Opening the Door to FDA-Compliant Branded Tweets: Deck.ly has enormous potential for pharmaceutical marketers who have been chaffing at the bit to post meaningful branded messages via Twitter but who have been stymied by lack of guidance from FDA regarding how to provide fair balance within the 140-character limit of Twitter.

Many critics of pharma-supported CME believe this support leads to bias. Between 9 May 2011 and 13 September 2011, readers of Pharma Marketing News were asked to answer a few short questions relating to potential bias in industry-supported CME programs and how to limit the need for industry funding of CME. The results are summarized in this article.