Jul/31/2008 07:18
The disconnect
between slow, plodding scientific research and the
demands of Wall Street are on stark display in the
world of Alzheimer's drug development "Wall Street
either overly hypes a new discovery or damns it too
soon," complained Rudolph Tanzi, director of the
genetics and aging unit at Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston and a leading Alzheimer's
researcher.
"This was just the
first wave of drugs, and it would be terribly bad for
the field and for patients to make quick assumptions.
There are many other drugs in the pipeline, some of
them a thousand times more potent." In fact, the
Alzheimer's Assn. has decided that there are finally
enough drug candidates in human trials to start
convening ICAD annually, after meeting only once
every two years since the conference started in
1988. Read
More...
Jul/29/2008 07:00
A
2007 Consumer Medical and Health Information poll,
commissioned by Ask.com and conducted by Harris
Interactive, demonstrates that adults now rely on the
Internet as a primary source of health-related
information nearly as much as they rely on their
primary doctors. Seventy percent of adults are now
turning to the Internet as one of their primary
resources for medical and health information,
surpassed only slightly by their personal physician
(72 percent). Results also cited the Internet as a
far more popular resource for health information than
traditional media outlets such as
newspapers/magazines (30 percent), television (26
percent) and books (25 percent) -- even surpassing
friends and family (40 percent) as a source to find
the medical information people seek
Read
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Jul/28/2008 07:18
I
had the chance to attend an online seminar, partly
sponsored by Forrester, on why a lot of companies are
not embracing Web marketing. As the presentation
began to unfold I was reminded of just how hard it is
for pharma eMarketing people to really move forward
with eMarketing initiatives. It is often an exercise
in frustration that leads to a “good enough”
mentality for online programs. Read
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Jul/26/2008 12:05
Amgen Inc. got an
injection of upbeat news as its new bone-building
drug was found to reduce the risk of spinal and hip
fractures in a study of 7,800
women.
Because
D-mab is given by twice-yearly injection, analysts
are uncertain whether it can surpass sales of the
current generation of bone drugs known as
bisphosphonates but this is where a great marketing
program of DTC ads and physician messaging can really
pay off. Read
More...
Jul/25/2008 07:46
“At the end of the
day, the single most important thing for managers to
do in this age of consumer control is to simply lead.
Opportunity is everywhere, and because lines of
ownership are so fuzzy…everyone is capable of reaping
the dividends of small or bold acts of leadership.”
This quote is from the author of a book that ALL
marketers need to read called “Satisfied customers tell three
friends, angry customers tell
3,000. It is the
reality of new media and the new age of consumer
and patient empowerment.
Read
More...
Jul/23/2008 01:03
You might wonder why
the drug industry keeps taking it on the chin but
this article from Wired Magazine
is
enough to get people talking and venting about
drug pricing and pharma companies in
general. On Thursday,
the Joint Economic Committee will open hearings in
Congress on dramatic price hikes for drugs used to
treat children, with a focus on companies such as
Questcor and Ovation Pharmaceuticals, which in
2006 bought rights to a drug that treats heart
problems in premature infants, and increased the
price 1,800 percent to $1,875 per three-vial
treatment Read
More...
Jul/23/2008 06:03
With gas prices
hovering around $4 a gallon, patients are cutting
back on medical care. Just how much they are cutting
back is not completely know at this time but
The Doctors
Office articles in this
morning’s Wall Street
Journal was enough to signal
that the cutback maybe deep and extensive. Rising
deductibles, stiff drug co-payments and increasing
prices for just about everything are forcing some
hard choices about health. Care that doesn't strike
patients as critical is getting delayed. As the
economy squeezes patients, they are showing up
sicker. Read
More...
Jul/22/2008 05:23
Marketing budgets
are being cut by blue chip marketers, DTC budgets are
being cut and if you think this is the worst “you
ain’t seen nothing yet!” With the pharma industry in
black hole of transition to new business models that
will finally work and Genentech blind sided by
Roche’s bid to buy the whole company many marketing
people had better start updating their resumes as
rumored deep cuts in marketing may finally become a
reality with an industry struggling to be profitable
and develop new drugs. Read
More...
Jul/21/2008 06:52
According to Ad Age
this morning “blue chip” marketers are looking to cut
marketing, and we’re not talking about little cuts
we’re talking a lot of dollars here.
Amid
roiling financial markets, a who's who of blue-chip
marketers are making moves to slash marketing
spending, or at least apply tougher financial
discipline to what they do spend. Among them are five
major companies that together contribute more than
$10 billion to the U.S. ad economy: General Motors
Corp., Procter & Gamble Co., Anheuser-Busch,
Coca-Cola Co. and Nissan. Is this the end of
marketing? No but as this author predicted it is the
beginning of the end of big marketing budgets.
Read
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Jul/18/2008 01:59
Yesterday I saw a
great DTC ad for Detrol LA. The ad opens with a women
in her physicians waiting room and rushing to the
bathroom while the voice over talks about “having the
Detrol discussion with your doctor” As the women
reads the Detrol material she confidently says to her
doctor “I’m ready to have the Detrol discussion”.
What I like about this spot is that it addresses the
moment of truth when the patient meets with her
physician and gives an example of just how easy it is
to ask for Detrol. Read
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Jul/16/2008 06:18
The pharmaceutical
industry by conventional wisdom is resistant to
economic downturns, because people need medicine in
good times and bad. But data from market researcher
IMS Health and Wall Street analysts indicate that the
rate of prescription growth has fallen steadily since
early last year and in recent months has slipped in
and out of negative territory. How bad can it get?
Well a Marketing Director recently told me “this is
not a recession, it’s a depression for healthcare
marketing”. Read
More...
Jul/13/2008 11:48
Well as this author
reported many times this year DTC budgets are in fact
decreasing according to various media reports. Those
of us in the industry knew this was coming as the
changes to the pharma business model were as sutle as
100 car freight train traveling at 80 MPH.
Read
More...
Jul/09/2008 07:36
Some physicians are
trying to go online with patients but they are
finding out the the ROI is just not there yet as
patients are slow to adapt to virtual online visits.
Here is a great story from today’s
Wall
Street Journal by a physician who
has decided to shut down his practice website because
it costs too much and is not providing the benefits
(ROI) he had hoped. Read
More...
Jul/07/2008 12:55
Consumer-opinion
websites have been a principal enabler of hardening
consumer attitudes. In this new world
marketers can not only lose control of their messages
but they may also experience greatly diminished
selling effectiveness because of a few bad reviews
& experiences on social media sites. That
suggests a vastly more critical role for advertising
research and testing, especially for products or
services that have, shall we say, checkered pasts
like pharmaceutical brands. Read
More...
Jul/07/2008 07:34
The squeeze is on
for ad agencies. Last week I received a phone call
from someone who was just let go from her job at a
big New York agency. It seems that despite all the
meetings to try and convince clients to spend more
money the people at the top have said “no more
dollars”. The account she was working on (pharma
company) has decided to “recycle old DTC ads and cut
back on media spending”. She now finds herself
looking for work as do half a dozen other people who
were working on the account. After my conversation
with her I decided to call some other people on the
agency side of the business to see what was going on
and what I found is that there are a lot of people
who are scared about losing their jobs because DTC
budgets are shrinking. Read
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Jul/07/2008 07:20
For the first time
in world history children are dying because they have
too much food. Yes, here in the US 30% of children
are obese and now the AAP has recommended that
children, as young as 8, start taking statins to help
control their cholesterol. Pharma will of course
embrace this as any company is happy to expand the
market but if we are really focused on the overall
health of our customers a lot more has to be done on
prevention, especially with children.
Read
More...
Jul/03/2008 07:07
Another reminder
on Mr Macks BLOG
that
pharma is has not invested in the online channel
and continues to lag behind consumer packaged
goods marketers. According to the chart on Mr
Macks BLOG pharma has only spent 3.1% of their
budgets online while the overall trend is double
that. No matter where you go, there you are
! Read
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Jul/01/2008 06:25
It
should come as no surprise that 69% of people cited
“worried about costs” as the number one reason for
delaying or going without needed care. When the
economy takes a downturn, like it is now, people tend
to put off as many expenses as possible. That means a
move from preventative care to going to a physician
when they absolutely need to. However what was also
troubling was that 81% of people who cited the health
system said that they could not get an appointment
soon enough, could not get to the doctor’s office
when it was open or said it takes too long to get to
the doctors office. While this sounds like excuses it
means that a lot of people are not getting
preventative care which could lead to higher costs on
an already taxed healthcare system.
Read
More...
