2011

The year 2010 was all about me. By 'me' I mean Pharmaguy, which is the Twitter handle and Facebook name of John Mack, Editor and Publisher of Pharma Marketing News. It's all about YOU too! This is where you can 'sign' the 2010 Pharma Marketing Yearbook and and document that you were part of it all.

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.?

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #11 (21 JUNE 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

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

Sebelius focused on the fact that Teva's study did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use. According to Tina Raine-Bennett, MD, MPH, of the Women's Health Research Institute at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, a principal investigator of the University of California-San Francisco study, it is unreasonable and virtually impossible to study the use of emergency contraception in 11- and 12-year-olds, because only a small fraction of them will have had sex by that age.

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.

Patients also need more effective counseling about their medications. In an effort to make drug package inserts easier to read and understand -- and perhaps to save money on printing costs -- the FDA is planning to test single-page consumer information sheets that would replace the multi-page package inserts and medication guides widely used in retail pharmacies. However 'dumbed down' the label gets, it is still important that physicians and pharmacists take a more pro-active role in educating consumers about the drugs they are taking.

FDA's revised draft guidance calendar for year 2011 is missing 'Promotion of Prescription Drug Products Using Social Media Tools,

The long-awaited social media guidance from the FDA -- whenever it arrives -- may turn out to be nothing more than a stamp of approval on activities in which the industry is currently engaged. Practically every issue that FDA guidance is expected to address has already been handled independently by a few pioneering pharmaceutical companies. Rather than waiting for FDA's anti climatic guidelines, Pharmaguy decided to publish The Pharmaguy Social Media Timeline™ now, at a time when the industry already has set precedents in every social media application.

According to a Bad Ad Program 2010-2011 Year End Report just issued by the FDA, the program is a success despite the fact that ONLY 125 complaints were deemed worthy of