2011

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

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

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.

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.'

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.

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #19 (21 DECEMBER 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

In a recent video titled 'What Gets PhRMA's Chairman Up Every Morning?', Chris Viehbacher, CEO of Sanofi, cited an impressive Potemkin number related to life expectancy and the pharma industry.

Welcome to Volume 10, Issue #6 (30 MARCH 2011) of Pharma Marketing News.

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?

The fear is that if the first steps by pharma to engage in social media conversation are too harshly scrutinized and criticized, the drug industry will shy away from getting more involved in social media.