Pharma not serving its customers well

Negative 45 points since 1997 ! That is one hell of a track record and like Bill Parcells says "you are what your record says you are". Yet what has pharma done to try and turn opinions around? Well the propaganda company spots don't work very well and pharma has done little in the way of education to enlighten people on the challenges they face. Why should they..after all what's the ROI?

Some of the media stories about pharma have been shortsighted and not researched very well but given this age of attention deficit disorder when it comes to clutter consumers are NOT going to research an industry unless they are investors or have a bone to pick.

Other stories have been covered in depth. The NY Times, which is generally anti-pharma, ran a series of articles on the Zyprexa case in Alaska both before and after the settlement. They painted a picture of Lilly as trying to sell Zyprexa for off-label indications and not warn physicians about the potential for diabetes in patients taking Zyprexa. Well I worked at Lilly and while I was there I found them to be a reputable company. However in the days when Prozac and Zyprexa were providing Lilly with a lot of cash certain questions may not have been asked when sales went up and up.

Now back to customers...of course pharma has a lot of customers today. There are physicians who prescribe the drugs, payers who agree, or disagree, to put drugs on formularies, and patients. Pharma has always tried to stay out any relationship with customers as they don't want to come between doctors and patients. However there is a big gap that needs to be filled and this emotional support and information. Pharma product website have great tools and information but a lot of medical conditions have serious emotional barriers attached to them, just ask any patient taking an SSRI or ED drug.

I am not of course suggesting that pharma start conversations with every patient but they have an opportunity to be aggregators of the conversation and bring people together to talk about disease conditions and treatments. As someone who used to sell insulin pumps to diabetics I know that a LOT of people were devastated when they were diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes so much that in fact some had to go on anti-depressants. This was especially true when newly diagnosed patients were in great health. I read the story, for example, of a 22 year old woman who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and was shocked and depressed; "I run 4-5 miles a day, eat right and only weigh 110 lbs", "How could this happen to me".

There is a need for emotional support groups for most medical conditions because emotional support is NOT something patients get at doctors offices. The reason so many people are using social media to reach out is to not only get answers but to get reinforcement that they can continue to enjoy and live life on their terms.

So can pharma's reputation improve or continue to get worse. Well this year the poll showed that the difference between positive and negative was +15%. Only time will tell but all it takes is one bad decision and one major media story to effect the whole industry.