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It's time for the pharma industry to remember that we're here to help patients
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OK, when searching for health information people will probably tend to use a search engine but actually we are seeing some trends that indicate that online health seekers are becoming more frustrated with search engines. I heard this loud and clear at my last research when diabetics said that when tried to search for information on diabetes they were bombarded with ads for everything from ED drug pharmacies to diabetic supply stores. Yes there are ways to refine searches and narrow the criteria but remember the Internet is a relatively new channel that people are still learning.
Now consider some of the new models of behavioral targeting that are emerging. According to a recent article in Business 2.0 some models can tell more about you than you could write in a 1000 word essay. They know what sites you visit, how long you stay, what stories you click on and can run optimizers that run 5000 to 10000 calculations to evaluate online ad campaigns. They can tell you if more people clicked on a blue background of your ad than a red one..if the ad with the man was more responsive or the ad with the woman. This ability to laser target is what the Internet has always been about it's just that marketers are finally getting into better ROI models because their shrinking budgets demand more accountability.
Should you allocate of 25% of your online media budget to search? That depends on a lot of criteria such as awareness of the disease state and brand but remember that Google can sell your brand name to other advertisers as well for paid search. The new models of behavioral targeting being offered by Microsoft and Yahoo are certainly the right step but marketers have to become a lot more savvy in describing their audience. We can't simply go by demographics anymore we need a detailed psychographics profile or our target audience.
This author feels that Google has a great product and will continue to evolve but I think they will find that the laws of gravity apply to them and their stock price will come way back down to earth. In the meantime try and think like your customers before deciding to allocate dollars on search. It may save you a lot of money and make you look like a hero.
Just how bad are the ads? Well the industry is abuzz with just bad these ads are. They don't cut through the clutter and for the life of me anyone that can put together that Abe Lincoln stands for honesty and the beaver for hard work watches way too much TV. Still Rozerem's web traffic for January has increased but somehow I don't think this is going to translate than a marginal share increase against Ambien CR. These ads are so bad that when I recently talked to a colleague who was about to send out a request for information for a new drug she informed me that because the Rozerem ads were in fact soo bad they were told that if the agency that created the ads were invited to pitch she would be replaced.
I have seen a lot of DTC ads over the last few years but none as bad as the Rozerem ads. I can't get over that they are still running but then what's a couple of millions of dollars to create the spots and buy media to lift share marginally. The Ambien brand team should be thankful that the folks at Takeda are sticking with this campaign because it means that they just sit back and have a good laugh.
I'll say this the new Web MD site is more visually appealing than their older site but with so much information to digest on one page its a bit overwhelming. There are imbedded FLASH modules that change, articles that ask you to click and advertisements that divert your attention. Instead of segmenting the audience and looking at how they would want to gather information Web MD seems to want to entice people into a maze of pages that even I have trouble navigating.
One
of the new features is the ability to store your
health information online. I find this interesting
because in recent research that we conducted we
continually heard that patients do not want to store
their personal health information online because of
privacy issues. It seems every week we hear stories
in the media about computers with personal
information being hacked or someone losing laptops
with databases on millions of people.
I
believe that people go to Web MD to get answers on a
variety of issues that they maybe facing. I don't
believe that people would regularly go to the site as
they would sites they visit everyday like CNN.com or
Wall Street Journal.com. click stream analysis
clearly shows that when people are faced with health
issues they usually go to a number of sites like
WebMD or Mayo Clinic.com. When deciding on
prescription medications they will go to the products
website but then also might go to competitors to
determine which medication has fewer side effects.
This gathering of information is a normal process for
online health users but what I have also found is
that online health seekers can quickly become
overwhelmed with informational choices. Where should
they go and more importantly who should they trust?
When designing health websites it's important to use
the KISS principle (keep is simple stupid). Don't try
to overwhelm your audience with a myriad of calls to
action. Take off your marketers hat and think the way
your audience thinks and you will be successful in
what you do. The new Web MD site is a step in the
right direction but they need to let their users
design their site rather than the business
people.
What makes matters worse is that during the DTC conference there is once again an awards dinner. "Let's pat ourselves on the back for a job we feel we did well". This at a time when ED ads are running on "G" rated TV shows and the industry as a whole is coming more and more under the microscope. Where are the innovators? Where are the people who believe that what we do if for our patients not for the bottom line?
I recently heard about a major drug company who is wants to speed approval of a new drug because the potential for off label use is great and could lead to a windfall in sales dollars. This, unfortunately is what drives people at pharma; the pursuit of the almighty sales dollar at any cost to keep the street happy and ensure that the CEO gets his millions of dollars in bonuses. And in the back are the DTC marketers who use the same old marketing programs to reach people with the delusion that someone seeing a Cialis commercial is actually going to make them overcome all their internal barriers to seeking treatment. That people who see an Enbrel commercial are not going to zero in on "the potential fatal side effects" and block the brand message.
Maybe the Democratic Congress is right..maybe the industry can't regulate itself and needs to be "big brothered" by the FDA. I do know that it's time for DTC Perspectives to stop patting people on the back for mediocrity and talk about the issues that people want to keep in the closet.
Some impotence-drug makers have recently ramped up spending on advertising in an attempt to jump-start the category's faltering sales -- which have topped out around $3.2 billion a year world-wide, short of the $4 billion some analysts had predicted by now. Despite its aggressive cost-cutting in other marketing areas, Pfizer spent almost $35 million on Viagra ads in the third quarter of last year, almost 50% more than the year-earlier period, according to the most recent data available from TNS. Spending on Levitra quintupled in the third quarter of 2006 over the 2005 period. Both companies had pulled broadcast ads during parts of 2005 over regulatory concerns, though spending on other forms of advertising continued. Drug companies still are spending less on the ads for impotence medicines than in 2004, when Cialis and Levitra had just launched. Ad's on the Internet are all but completely gone even though when this author worked on Cialis 85% of the traffic to the website was the direct result of online ads and paid search.
The viral component of the Web, especially consumer generated media, could be leverage to deliver a great message to a relevant audience. Somehow there are still marketers that believe someone is going to see a spot on TV and it is going to convince them to ask their physician about Cialis, Levitra or Viagra. Why did they come to that conclusion? They probably have lots of qualitative research that shows the message is memorable or motivating. But here's a news flash geniuses : people say and do two different things in focus groups ! That's what happens when marketers rely too much on market research and manipulate data to show that TV is the right way to go. As this author reported before the websites for Levitra, Viagra and Cialis have only had modest updates and none of them take advantage of new media to break through the barriers that men have to asking for treatment. Maybe that's why their budgets are cut so much because someone realized that the DTC they were using was not producing the ROI that they had expected.
The ED category is probably one that could benefit the most from consumer generated media. Can you imagine a real guy talking about the personal decision he went through to ask his doctor for treatment and then realizing how dumb he was for waiting too long? Not to mention the fact that he could mention that his doctor didn't ask him any embarrassing questions. Marketers have a lot to learn about the new consumer and new media but the mistakes that are being made are unforgivable and it's time to change the people who control the dollars with new talent that can meet the needs of consumers who are skeptical but still hungry for information.
Who are the drug companies? They are not huge buildings on a hill with all the warmth of an ice storm. Companies are made up of people but somehow during the last decade the marketers that have come into the pharmaceutical industry have done a lot of damage.
There is always pressure to make numbers in any company. It's what drives our salaries, bonus and expense budgets. But why would marketers make a bad decision that could cause harm to patients and lead to a mountain of litigation. Knowing the way most drug companies operate, in a matrix environment, I find it hard to believe that any one person could be responsible for these problems. All pharma companies have a process for getting promotional materials approved that involves legal, regulatory and medical support personnel. Unless there is a broad conspiracy by a lot of people these mistakes are the result of bad decisions that are the direct result of people who forgot why we are in this industry.
Bad decisions are a risk in any industry. The auto industry is always in the spotlight for safety issues and it seems that every day there is a recall of some type. Consumer Reports recently had to retract a story it ran on children's safety seats because the company that ran the tests reported the wrong data. All this, along with Tyco, Enron, and MCI, feed into an ere of consumer mistrust of "the establishment". In politics the White House now admits that the information they used to justify the war in Iraq was faulty. More fuel for the fire.
What this means for marketers, and the drug industry in general, is that we now need to redraw the line in the sand and move it more to the right. If there is the slightest possibility that a drug, or device, can cause a side effect we have to report to the FDA and physicians. We can't say anymore "that we are studying the issue to determine if there is a correlation". We now have to warn our patients and customers that there maybe a link and we are studying the correlation to determine the risk factors.
I also believe that more checks and balances are needed in the promotional process. People who approve promotional messages need to clearly indicate that they are approving these materials with documentation. Brand team leaders should be help accountable for everything that comes out of the brand including DTC and HCP materials. More than anyone these people need to be made aware that the environment in which we market is hostile and one bad decision could cost the company millions of dollars in lawsuits. More importantly the industry needs to be reminded why we are here: to make a difference in patients lives.
We all receive annual reviews and it has to be up to management to weed out marketers who make questionable decisions. The industry has to be more proactive in cleaning house because if we are not Congress will be glad to do it for us and the results will not be pretty. In recent research that I conducted with diabetics I learned of the problem these people had with living normal lives. It reminded me that I need to do whatever I can to help these people and provide answers to their concerns. Maybe it's time for everyone to listen more to patients and less to Wall Street to get back on track.
Second Life.com is an example of emerging media online. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 3,659,699 people from around the globe. Some smart brands are starting to make the plunge into this virtual world where people can interact with each other and share brand experiences. While this program is still in the early stages of its product life cycle it opens up a whole new opportunity to savvy marketers.
The
online viral opportunity of some brands, like Cialis,
could be huge but instead of breaking new ground your
more likely to see a "36 hour" commercial while
watching cable TV. No wonder the category is in a
funk. Marketers of ED products are stumped because
they can't figure out how to get men to ask their
doctors about their brands. They think that once
someone sees a commercial on TV it will eliminate the
potential barriers that men have to overcome to seek
treatment. Now you can see why I believe that a DTC
award is more of an oxymoron than an award.
This week I received an innovation to the next DTC
National in Washington DC and of course there is
another award dinner. Pharma marketers are great at
patting themselves on the back but this industry
should not reward baby steps as much as innovation.
Too many marketers out there stuck in traditional
brand marketing cycle..spend on DTV for reach and
frequency? No wonder the ED category has not seen
major growth..the marketers who control the media
dollars are just too myopic to understand that the
way to connect brands to people is to connect with
people. Too bad....
The Times did a great job of reporting the leaked documents in front page and front business page stories, Rather than question the motives of the attorney who leaked this information the Times chose to point fingers. While it is true that any neglect on Lilly's part to hide the weight gain issue is inexcusable the reporter obviously felt that the millions of people who have taken Zyprexa, and are leading better lives, were not worthy of mentioning. He also seemed to leave out the motives of the attorney who is in litigation with Lilly over Zyprexa. He was obviously looking for a huge payday and wanted to pressure Lilly into a settlement.
This story of the injunction was not covered in the Times, at least anywhere that this author could find. The Times has an axe to grind with big pharma that much is obvious from its editorials and continued negative stories. It should however offer readers better coverage and more balanced reporting than this. When I read the Times I now question all their stories and with each one a great newspaper becomes more ordinary.
In an important change, cancer patients' own assessments of how a drug is working, called patient-reported outcomes or PROs, are increasingly part of the drug-approval process at the Food and Drug Administration. The agency says PROs have been integral for the approval of a number of cancer drugs in recent years, including Amgen Inc.'s Kepivance for severe mucositis, mouth sores that are a side effect of cancer treatment, and Axcan Scandipharm Inc.'s Photofrin, an agent used in treating precancerous lesions in Barrett's esophagus.
There have been calls by researchers to add PROs to reports of drug toxicity that are used during clinical trials, something traditionally reported only by clinicians. There is even emerging evidence that, for patients with advanced cancer, a patient's self-report about how he is feeling is a better predictor of how long a patient will live than other standard clinical data.
Traditionally, patients' quality of life or well-being while on a drug has been a secondary consideration, rated and reported by researchers. But one recent study demonstrated that clinicians tend to underestimate subtle signs of problems that patients can pick up on earlier; patients reporting numbness in the hands or feet, a symptom caused by some anticancer drugs, were able to detect the problem months before the clinician reports did.
The shift toward PROs is important for cancer patients, whose opinions now play a much more significant role in determining the success of a drug. It is driven in part by the growing influence of the patient-advocacy movement. But it can also be valuable for drug companies, which often invest huge sums of money in drugs that fail because they can't demonstrate that the drugs extend a patient's life. With the emerging role of PROs, drugs that don't necessarily extend life but make the patient feel and function better have a better chance of winning approval.
PROs have long been an integral part of trials testing new drugs to treat conditions such as arthritis, where patients are the most accurate source on whether a product relieves pain. In cancer trials, though, whether a patient lives longer has long been the central measure by which a drug is judged. However, in recent years, the reality began to sink in that there weren't many new cancer drugs that dramatically extended people's lives. The FDA increasingly began to acknowledge that giving someone a higher quality of life offered clinical benefits that could lead to an approval.
What drug companies and FDA both realized is that "changes in tumor size do not always conform with improvement as perceived by the patient," says Laurie Burke, director of study endpoints and label development in the Office of New Drugs at FDA.
Eli Lilly & Co. has used PROs in the regulatory process for its drug Gemzar, approved for pancreatic cancer in 1996 and ovarian cancer in 2006. In the 2004 approval of its Alimta drug for lung cancer, PRO data were critical in showing that the new drug not only shrank tumors as effectively as the existing treatment, but had fewer patient-reported side effects. "PROs are now a standard part of our Phase III cancer drug trials," says Astra Lipa, senior health outcomes scientist at Lilly.
Patient-reported data are also becoming more important in determining which approved drugs oncologists will prescribe -- especially important given the high price of cancer drugs. At a meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta last year, Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. made a point of presenting patient-reported data on their new kidney-cancer drug Nexavar, demonstrating the drug improved the way patients perceived their own health-related quality of life. (In the case of Nexavar, the PROs weren't submitted for the FDA approval process because the trial had early success and there wasn't time to evaluate those data. The drug, the first new kidney-cancer treatment approved in a decade, was shown to double the time before the disease got worse, compared with a placebo.)
Last
year, the FDA issued a set of guidelines as to how
the agency will evaluate PROs during drug approval;
the final version is expected to be issued in the
coming months. The guidelines emphasize that patient
responses should be relevant measures of whatever is
being tested, and raised concerns about the
credibility of the PROs in cases when patients know
they are getting an active drug, because patient
responses are subjective.
In a 2005 paper published in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute, a group of researchers
associated with the Radiation Oncology Therapy Group
studied whether short-term radiation therapy was as
effective in alleviating pain in patients with cancer
that had spread to their bones as the standard
course, which was longer and involved higher doses.
By asking patients to rate how much pain they felt
and how much pain medicine they needed, doctors
concluded that shorter and lower doses of radiation
were just as effective. Deborah Watkins Bruner, one
of the authors of the study and a professor of
nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, says the
trial was a case study in the way PROs "can provide
evidence for important clinical changes."
The trial also demonstrated some of the challenges of
using patient information: 160 of the 845 patients
died or were too ill to fill out questionnaires after
three months of therapy. Even of the patients who
were able to provide the data, only 84% participated.
Ms. Burke at the FDA, says the problem of "missing
PRO data can't be ignored," and is especially
challenging in a disease like cancer where many of
the patients on a trial are likely to die. She said
the agency was asking companies to start working with
FDA on finding ways to deal with this issue as early
as Phase I of drug trials, when companies are still
only testing a drug in small numbers of patients for
safety issues.
Patricia Ganz, the director of the division of cancer
prevention and control in UCLA's cancer center, says
that all measures of how patients are faring have
problems. Blood-pressure readings can be different
depending on who is taking them. X-ray results may be
interpreted differently by various radiologists. It
isn't always easy to calculate exactly how much a
tumor has grown using CT scans. In her own research
and clinical experience, she says, "physicians are
very poor at predicting how long someone will live"
using standard clinical information. In a study she
and her colleagues conducted of patients with
advanced lung cancer, she said that patient
self-reports of their quality of life were a more
accurate predictor of survival outcome than physician
or laboratory assessments of prognosis.
David Cella, executive director of the Center on
Outcomes, Research and Education at Evanston
Northwestern Healthcare in Evanston, Ill., says drug
companies aren't going to be able to stray too far
from the issue of whether a drug has an impact on a
tumor. But Dr. Cella, who helped develop the
questionnaire used by Bayer and Onyx in the Nexavar
trials, says he noticed that patients and physicians
often had different priorities in assessing a drug.
Known as the Functional Assessment of Cancer
Therapy-Kidney Symptom Index, the questionnaire
included questions chosen by both patients and
clinicians. In the final list of questions, the top
eight chosen by patients included whether they were
able to work and whether they lacked energy.
Questionnaire items chosen by clinicians -- and not
ranked highly by patients -- included treatment side
effects, bone pain, shortness of breath and coughs.
Dr. Cella's group has created 10 other patient
questionnaires targeted to specific cancers.
At Bayer, which supplied a grant to help develop the
new index, Kathleen Gondek, the head of Global Health
Economics and Outcomes Research at the company, says
that "traditional measures" are necessary in
evaluating drug efficacy. But, she adds, "what we
have embraced is the understanding that how a patient
feels and functions may be equally important."
The experience of Robert Eppinger, 72, demonstrates
how important quality of life can be to patients. He
enrolled in the Nexavar trial in 2005 for advanced
kidney cancer. On the drug, his tumors have either
shrunk or held stable, and although Mr. Eppinger, a
retired office-furniture developer in Stamford,
Conn., said he would prefer a "cure," he still feels
well enough to continue activities such as going to
the theater. "To find out that I could maintain a
relatively normal life began to make me feel a lot
better," says Mr. Eppinger.
Pfizer's recent decision to trim up to 20% of its employees was due to some bad news. First a successor to their blockbuster Lipitor failed in clinical trials and second most of their top sellers, Zoloft & Lipitor, are due to come off patent in the near future. What better way to ensure the stock stays attractive than to layoff people? Eli Lilly recently announced another settlement in the Zyprexa litigation and the completed purchase of Icos, the biotechnology company that they comarketed Cialis with. With all this money flowing out Lilly has had to tighten its belt to ensure that they meet the Streets expectations. To do this I am sure that a lot of programs will be cut including investment in R&D. While this will keep analysts happy now it may mean trouble 5-10 years down the road.
I am an avid reader of business magazines, websites and books and one thing is becoming more apparent to me: great leaders are hard to come by ! CEO's are treated like rock stars with perks that range from private jets to exclusive residences. If they stay on, even for a short period of time, they can leave with golden parachutes that ensure they never have to work again. They know that while they are there their goal is to ensure the stock remains attractive even if it means making bad short term decisions. Have 5 drugs in the pipeline? Well we can only afford to fund two for clinical trials and further development so let's pick the two with the biggest potential for ROI. The problem with model of course is that drugs were never looked at in terms of ROI it was always about patients.
Great leaders have a vision of where they are going and how they want to get there. They are not afraid to go against the prevailing winds and chart a course for new markets. It's too bad that most pharma CEO's spend more time looking at the numbers than with their customers because what we do is so important to extending life and providing a better quality of life. Maybe it's time to remind them that the reason we're in business is for people...not banks.
From the fist time your customers see one of your DTC commercials to when they go to your product website your customers are engaging in the brand experience. If it's not a positive interaction for them what do you think is going to happen? Marketers don't focus on this today because they are too busy doing other things but if you chart the customer experience with the brand it can identify potential customer dropouts and help you develop interventions to ensure that these dropouts are minimal. It costs too much money to get customers to interact with your brand for marketers to ignore the touch points yet in my conversations with other DTC marketers that is exactly what is happening.
Starbucks knows that people come into a Starbucks for the brand experience..it's rewarding and something that they do for themselves. It's also cool to walk around with a Starbucks coffee cup. Starwood hotels continually promote the "heavenly shower and bed" which entices business travelers who want to escape the daily hassles of travel today. Because of this superior brand experience they are able to command premium prices and own a position in consumers minds. Pharma companies have not adopted a model like this often because they have to deal with a matrix department to chart the customers experience with the brand.
There are those who believe that customers are not emotional about pharma brands and to them I say simply "untrue". All brand choices are emotional. Let's take the statin category for example; there are a range of products that are all competing for a share of this market from market leader Lipitor to Vytorin. Yet type Lipitor into Google and you will see a host of consumer generated media sites that tell people of their horrible experience with Lipitor. Rather than reach out to these people Pfizer continues to ignore them and a risk that their voices could become louder and sway people to competitors.
The best way to ensure that marketers understand their customers is to simply chart each interaction with the brand. What do we want to have happen and what is happening now? How can we ensure that we execute flawlessly to ensure that each touch point with our customers is a positive one? The market is getting just too competitive today for marketers to ignore the brand experience. It's time to think like consumers instead of marketers..
Forming a relationship with your customers is not easy. As people become more familiar with using the Web, and eMail, they are becoming more and more careful about whom they form a relationship with. Most pharma companied focus on new Rx's rather than increasing the lifetime value of current customers. They don't understand that in order to form this relationship they have to identify the value proposition that will get customers to raise their hands and say "yes, I want to have a relationship with you". We also should remember that each segment within your market may have a different need and thus segmentation of messaging within CRM is essential.
It's
also important to identify trends within your
segments, develop messages for each segment and
deploy your CRM programs with speed and quality. If
your product, or disease condition, is in the news
then take advantage of than to talk and engage your
audience. Don't wait three months until it's old news
do it now and do it quickly is the key to a great CRM
program. Marketers often overlook people who have
opted in for information from your company. These
people can provide a wealth of information from
product packaging designs to competitive programs
that are capturing their attention.
CRM is not easy to implement but if you have the
right people in place it can provide valuable
insights and help your brand meet it's business
objectives. It's time for pharma to stop thinking
about new Rx's and look at ways to keep current
customers happy, and that is what a great CRM program
can do.
By all accounts the TV spots on this years Superbowl were not exciting or entertaining. Creative people have taken over instead of marketing people and when that happens you get spots that may cut through the clutter but don't drive business. The Budweiser spots are a prime example. Although I feel that they are very creative they don't make me want to go out and purchase Bud and that is the driving issue with TV ads today. The commercial for the AHA was bad and misplaced. The website does have a nice interactive tool but I can assure you that not a hell of a lot of people want to go online to find out that their couch potato lifestyles could lead to heart disease. This is what happens when you think of what you want to "push" to online customers rather than acknowledge that the Internet is a "pull" customer content driven channel.
$2.6 million was the going price for a 30-second spot at the Superbowl. What idiot thought that while people are sitting in front of their TV's eating dinner or munching snacks that a reminder of heart disease would cut through the clutter. That is like trying to sell membership for AARP on MTV ! This my friends is what happens when common sense it overruled by corporate politics and media planners whose job it is to get the client to spend as much money as possible rather than engage and reach a targeted audience. Shame on the people at the AHA for such a bad move and wasting $2.6 million.
According to CNN:
.Many practices must tie up $50,000 or more in vaccine inventory, run multiple refrigerators, insure the vaccines and spend lots of time on inventory management. They also must absorb the cost of broken or wasted vials and say that's not possible with most insurers reimbursing at just $2 to $15 over the $120 per dose charged by Gardasil's developer, Merck & Co. of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey "Doctors are drawing a line in the sand on this. They're either not giving it or requiring a surcharge," said Dr. Daniel Schwartz of Broadway Pediatrics Associates in Westport, New Jersey, which charges patients a $25 surcharge per shot. Dr. Jill Stoller of Chestnut Ridge Pediatric Associates in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, said the inadequate insurance reimbursement for Gardasil is keeping "a wonderful new vaccine" from many patients. "It really is a shame," said Stoller, who also assesses a surcharge
Pediatricians and gynecologists at solo and large group private practices contacted by The Associated Press said they would, at best, break even if they stocked the vaccine. Most will give patients a prescription to get filled and bring back, but that could cost patients far more. "I don't know where to turn," said Julie Falco, a Marlboro, New York, elementary school teacher trying to get her 13- and 15-year-old daughters vaccinated. Her pediatrician, Dr. Herschel Lessin told her his 20-doctor Children's Medical Group in Poughkeepsie, New York, can't afford to stock Gardasil. Lessin said insurers paying their executives millions won't give him $25 to cover his costs, but will spend tens of thousands if a patient develops cervical cancer.
His practice will provide prescriptions but warned Falco her insurer might not reimburse her and pharmacies might mark each dose up to $200. Falco then tried her gynecologist, who sent her back to the pediatrician. "I still don't have the shot and now I have to decide whether I want to make a $1,200 investment to get them vaccinated," she said. "I really don't want to deny them what I think is right." Dr. Michael Blum, senior partner in a big pediatric practice in suburban Kansas City, said it only provides Gardasil to patients who pay $450 up front, then tries to get insurance reimbursement for them. Only a half-dozen patients have done so.
Dr. Kathleen Moore of AppleTree Pediatrics in Tyler, Texas, said as a solo practitioner she not only can't stock Gardasil but can't afford it for her own 12- and 13-year-old daughters. When she explains the situation to patients, "they all say 'We'll be happy to wait,' because they can't afford to pay for it either."
What a shame that the company whose founder said
". In this case Merck seems to want to put profits ahead of good medicine and that my fellow readers is nothing short of a shame."We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. Not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear
One thing I believe about politicians; they will say anything to posture for the media. Logistics don't matter t them, that's someone else's responsibility. Among the provisions of the new bill is a measure to restructure the FDA to create a Drug Safety Center. This unit would have the power to alter labels (including a black box warning) on approved drugs if ongoing clinical studies suggest that there maybe some safety issues. What concerns me about this whole process of development of "new guidelines" is the fact that the senators who developed these programs did not reach out to the pharma industry leaders to reach a consensus that would benefit both benefit and protect patients. They went off into their own little worlds and developed these proposals without considering the consequences of their actions.
As
this author has said all along there are changes on
the horizon for the drug industry but the issues are
complex and far reaching. Poll's continue to show
that the public is getting fed up with posturing and
lip service, they want people to work together to
find solutions for all of us. Pharmaceutical
companies continue to be targeted by the media and
Congress and who can blame them. All we see on TV are
commercials with the CEO of Merck telling us how the
company is committed to developing great drugs at a
time when they are in the headlines with Vioxx
litigation or Pfizer talking about innovation in new
drug development when they are laying off 10,000
people and have had a major new drug fail in clinical
tests.
Again this author believes that the pharmaceutical
industry needs to circle the wagons and inform a
skeptical public about the expense of developing new
drugs and the number of people worldwide who are
leading a better quality of life thanks to todays
prescription drugs. If the pharma industry does and
says nothing than they had better be prepared for the
consequences that will, I believe, limit their
ability to compete in an increasing competitive
marketplace.
Nearly all of the people participating in the focus groups turn to the Internet for health information but they also seem to be frustrated with the "clarity" of that information. All too often they find the information confusing and hard to understand even on sites like Web MD. We also heard that they tend not to trust manufacturers sites because "they will only tell you the good things not the bad". We heard this both days from all our groups. They want to be able to compare products against each other and are very frustrated that they usually have to go to a number of different sites to get that information. Content is king on websites and we heard from a number of people that a lot of the content on product.com websites is hard to understand.
We then did an interesting exercise, we let them design our new website home-page and then they presented the home pages to the other people in the groups. This was enlightening because the Web is about what users want not what marketers want them to see. What was funny was that they quickly switched hats from consumers to marketers saying things like "we want our visitors to go here". One thing became apparent though..I want what I want and if I can't find it on your site I am going to leave and go elsewhere.
Not Happy With Their Doctors
One would think that their physicians would offer advice on medications and or medical devices but we found the opposite. All too often HCP's just gave patients brochures or told them to go to the Web to answer their questions. In fact on woman was as bold to say that "all doctors are whores" when asked about getting health information from their HCP's. Obviously she has had a bad experience with her doctor but people want to talk about their health issues and more importantly talk to each other. This is where the Web can play a big part in bringing people together to share their experiences. Our subjects continually expressed the desire for patient testimonials but only if they were real and not "edited". "I want to know what happens the good and the bad experience" said one person, and the others were quick to agree. The Internet can be that channel to bring these people together but I am sure that the legal and regulatory people are going to have something to say about that. Still I am going to move forward with this goal..I went as far as to invite a person from my legal team to the research and she said that it was "highly enlightening" and that I was right we have to find a way to make it happen for the benefit of our patients. For the benefits of our patients....that to me is what it's all about.