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.

Should a PR firm or an interactive marketing agency be in charge of pharma social media campaigns?

One survey says yes, pharma reps are important to physicians, another says not so much. Who are we to believe?

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.

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.

An anonymous poster to CafePharma described what the

This is the last in a series of three articles highlighting points made by Kantar Health executives in a recent webinar titled, 'Getting It Right in the Emerging Markets: Identifying the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls in conducting market research in new geographies.'

Pharma Marketing News is the monthly e-newsletter of the Pharma Marketing Network (www.pharma-mkting.com). It is packed with facts, opinions, and case studies based upon interviews with experts in the field of pharmaceutical marketing. Highlights of presentations from industry conferences, contact lists for experts consulted, and links to references help susbcribers keep up to date on best practices and network with their peers.

Pfizer's US corporate Facebook page was hacked by some 'Kiddies.' What should the industry learn from this experience?

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.'