Jun/30/2009 07:12
I often hear
stories from old timers about how drug companies
used to employ salespeople who had a medical
education or background. “You could often talk to
these people who tended to be knowledgeable about
medicine” one pharmacist told me. “Today they
come in with literature and canned talks and when
you want to talk with them they often tell us
that we’ll have to talk to the ML”. While the
number of medical liaisons has been increasing
recently the real question is “Do we trust drug
companies to provide ML’s as a resource or is
this an attempt to sell more drugs?”
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Jun/29/2009 02:15
The death if
Billie Mays illustrates just how quickly
undiagnosed heart disease can take a life.
Whether Mr Mays knew he had heart disease or high
blood pressure will be open for debate but I
believe this is a clear illustration of why
people need to see their physician for an annual
check up and follow up visits. Both drug
companies and the AMA has to do a lot better job
to communicate the dangers of undiagnosed medical
conditions which on the surface can have no
distinct symptoms until it’s too late.
Read
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Jun/29/2009 06:43
One of the
reasons that I like eMarketer so much for online
information is that they give you the information
you need without the fluff of some online
services like Forrester which tends to give you
insights from analysts who don’t have a
background in healthcare. While it is important
to always start with brand objectives when
developing your online strategy a lot of
eMarketing people often ignore the triggers of
people going online for health information and
what users really want when they do go
online. Read
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Jun/26/2009 07:59
There perhaps is
no diagnosis as devastating as cancer for
patients and family. Even with all of today’s
medications and early detection the struggle to
keep this horrible disease in check is often a
long and painful journey as documented by the
brave fight that Ms Farrah Fawcett waged against
her cancer. The most touching moment of her
documentary was when, after going through an MRI,
physicians had to notify her that the cancer had
spread to her liver and that additional
treatments would be in vain. Until we can erase
moments like these from everyone’s lives the
challenge for the drug industry will be to
everything it can to research and develop new
medications for cancer. Read
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Jun/25/2009 10:52
A guy who spent
his career working for health-insurance companies
went up to Capitol Hill today and unloaded on his
former industry. “My name is
Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a
senior executive at health insurance companies,
and I saw how they confuse their customers and
dump the sick –- all so they can satisfy their
Wall Street investors.” I have been
saying all along that the biggest threat to
consumer health is not the pharma industry but
insurers and one has to wonder if the “healthcare
for profit model” can ever work in a country
where the dollar seems to rule our daily
lives. Read
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Jun/24/2009 08:24
There are an
awful lot of people without health insurance and
a trip to the doctor for most of these people is
just not possible but an online alternative
called “eCure Me” is offering patients a chance
to self diagnose their medical conditions which
in this authors opinion is not only dangerous but
foolish. Couple self diagnosis with the
increasing number of people who are sharing
prescription medications and you are playing with
the lives of patients who may seek reputable
healthcare after it’s too late.
Read
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Jun/24/2009 06:21
Ending
settlements in which branded drug makers pay
generic ones to delay entry into the market,
known as “pay-for-delay” settlements, would save
consumers $3.5 billion a year, plus “significant
savings” for the federal government, according to
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz
via the Health Blog in the WSJ. Mr Leibowitz has
set a priority of the FTC to stop such deals and
he is urging Congress to pass legislation to
restrict patent protection on prescription drugs.
What does this mean for patients? It means less
expensive drugs but it could also mean that the
number of new drugs in development is narrowed as
drug companies face increases pressure on revenue
and R&D costs. Read
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Jun/23/2009 05:36
The most recent
research that we conducted for a client finished
over the weekend and we got an earful from
physicians and use of the Internet for patients
to self diagnose. “I’m seeing more and more
patients come in saying I believe I have this and
want this to treat it” said one doctor while
another said “there is way too much bad
information out there, how the hell are my
patients supposed to know what is credible and
what is now?” When asked about drug company
product sites physicians said they were pretty
neutral except when the site is “overly
promotional”. Read
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Jun/21/2009 10:42
People all over
the Internet are asking the same thing “why
doesn’t pharma implement more social media
programs”? It’s a good question but unless you
have worked in big pharma it’s one that i hard to
answer and even harder to understand. Here are
the top reasons that I believe pharma does not
really embrace and integrate social media
programs into their marketing.
Read
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Jun/21/2009 09:24
I
just had a chance to watch again Michaal Moore’s
Sicko and although Mr Moore can be a blowhard he
raises some very good points. According to what I
have read the US spends more per person on health
care and gets less than any other country. All
you have to do is enter the complicated world of
healthcare to see how the system is choking on
itself and how it prevents some patients from
getting good quality healthcare.
Read
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Jun/19/2009 05:54
This week I
wrote about the Gardasil page on Facebook and
there seems to be quite a discussion going on
within the comments sections not to mention the
eMails I have received. First let me say that
there is a lot of misinformation out there when
it comes to the safety and efficacy of Gardasil.
Some websites and videos border on criminal with
misinformation and twisting of facts to scare
people while other claims have no basis in data
but still people need someone to blame when it
comes to an illness that seems to have no cause.
Here are some facts when it comes to
Gardasil... Read
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Jun/18/2009 05:53
Medical device
maker Medtronic Inc. says it paid nearly $800,000
over the past three years to a former Army
surgeon accused of fabricating a study that
reported positive results for one of the
company's key spine products. That’s a lot of
money but when a physician is paid this much
shouldn’t everything he/she does be scrutinized
more instead of less? It seems that in the
medical device arena this is indeed a common
practice and it’s time for the FDA to establish
some guidelines for payments to physicians from
medical device companies. Read
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Jun/17/2009 05:41
There are ways
to use social media right and ways not to use
social media. It all starts with the business
objectives and one of the business objectives for
Gardasil is to raise awareness and bring women
together to fight cervical cancer.
Gardasil’s Facebook
page is well done,
informative and let’s women connect with each
other to fight cervical cancer. Fair balance
is included on the home page and Gardasil does
not try and disguise the fact that this is a
Facebook page by a drug company. Is it
working? Well it has over 100,000 followers
and only time will tell but it’s a great first
entry marketing attempt into social
media. Read
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Jun/16/2009 06:48
On Monday, June
15, Obama went to Chicago to speak at a meeting
of the American Medical Assn., the nation's
largest physician organization. It was the first
time in 26 years that a President has addressed
the group. Obama's message: Any health-care
reform bill will have to change the way doctors
are reimbursed. That is, they could end up making
less money, not exactly what you want to hear but
does the President really understand that there
are lot of physicians who are struggling to make
ends meet because of the high cost of malpractice
insurance and other practice operational
costs? Read
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Jun/14/2009 01:11
I have had the
pleasure of writing this BLOG for over three
years now and have really enjoyed it as
healthcare marketing is a passion of mine. I have
tried to be objective and call for heads to roll
when mistakes are made, i.e. the mess with
Seroquel, but I also believe that at times the
drug industry has caught between a rock and a
hard place. I want to list the principles which I
believe here so that everyone who reads my BLOG
will have a clear understanding of where I
stand. Read
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Jun/13/2009 06:59
There was the
headline on Huffington Post.com “Drug Pusher”
with a big picture of Lilly’s corporate
headquarters and Zyprexa. The story, from
Blomberg News, is further indication that
reporters today are shallow at looking up facts
and that lawyers will do anything they can to try
courses in the media to get a big payday. However
let’s look at the facts here which is ironic
because the law should be about the facts.
Read
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Jun/12/2009 05:47
It’s easy to be
on the outside and throw arrows at those on the
inside when it comes to old news and past
marketing practices but if you work in the drug
industry and you see these so called
“journalists” constantly promoting negative
information how does that make you feel? I’m not
going to pretend that the drug industry is
squeaky clean, there have been some really bad
mistakes that have been made, but I for one am
leading a more healthier life because of the
prescription drugs I take. In the end a company
is made up of people who are guided by leadership
of the organization. The mistakes of the past and
present are due to a failure of leadership at all
levels of the company. Read
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Jun/11/2009 07:31
A poll of over
100,000 on CNN.com indicated that 75% users are
getting tired of social media. While the poll is
unscientific and raw it shows that the attention
span of the public is really poor when it comes
to the Internet and that the buzz around social
media may be more hype than reality. While pharma
DTC marketers and the FDA try and come up with
social media guidelines the social media trend
may be passing by and crashing to the shore with
little noise. Read
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Jun/10/2009 09:16
John Mack
recently posted
an article on
the results of his survey on just how much DTC
funds are going to be cut and it’s not pretty.
Based on the people within the industry that I
have talked to however they are not only
looking at cut budgets but they are making
frantic phone calls to their market research
people to justify the dollars they already
have. Most business executives don’t have a
marketing background and to them marketing is
an expense that adds little value so of course
when sales start to slow down it’s easy to say
“cut marketing”. Read
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Jun/08/2009 12:06
A
new application for iPhone 3,0 software, which
will be released later this month is called
Airstrip. It will allow physicians to monitor
patients vital signs via the iPhone remotely and
will surely lead to more applications for the HCP
market.
Jun/07/2009 04:43
My brother gave
me some troubling news this weekend. It seems
that he has severe osteoporosis in his hip to
which his physician immediately prescribed
generic Fosamax and a regimen of Vitamin D to get
his T score down. Today,
2 million American men have osteoporosis,
and
another 12
million are at risk for this disease.
Yet,
despite the large number of men affected,
osteoporosis in men remains underdiagnosed and
underreported. Granted this is a small market
compared to women who have osteoporosis but the
fact remains that men too are at risk for
osteoporosis. Is this market too small for DTC
marketers and there is too much education that
needs to happen to get physicians to screen men
for osteoporosis or is this a potential untapped
market? Read
More...
Jun/07/2009 07:56
A study on
Avandia "provides important and reassuring
information about Avandia for physicians fighting
diabetes," said Ellen Strahlman, Glaxo's chief
medical officer. But a large clinical study
designed to test whether GlaxoSmithKline PLC's
diabetes drug Avandia can be harmful to the heart
appears to have raised more questions than it has
answered, with some physicians calling the study
flawed. So the question becomes, forget the data,
forget the study, if you're a physician are you
comfortable prescribing Avandia? My guess the
answer to that would be no.
The bottom line is that physicians who were
comfortable prescribing Avandia will continue to
do so while those who have issues/questions will
not. The latest clinical trial raises more
questions than it answers.
Read
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Jun/05/2009 08:55
When I launched
Sararem.com one thing became apparent via
research: women were open to sharing informations
and wanted a platform to talk with each other. As
a result, and as part of Sarafem.com, I launched
a message board that soon became the top page
within the site. According to a report from
eMarketer 75% of female Internet users
participated in social media as of March of this
year. That's a really big number and pharma
marketers would do well to try and harness the
power of the community to help them spread the
work about healthcare treatment options.
Read
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Jun/04/2009 06:10
Interesting article in this
morning Times which
generally, judging from past articles, wants
socialized prescription drugs for patients
along with a watchdog adversarial FDA. In
summary the article reports on how a lot of
patients, mostly in low fixed incomes, are
having to chose which prescription drugs are
most important because they can't afford all
of them. So what we are learning is that it is
not necessarily to cost of branded
prescription drugs that is preventing some
people from taking their medications it is the
cost of generic medications as well. People in
lower incomes cannot afford to pay generic
costs. Someone in Washington had better read
this because unless something is done, and
done soon, these people are going to wind up
costing the healthcare system more later than
preventative care now. Read
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Jun/03/2009 11:12
Bing.com, the
new search engine from Microsoft, was launched this week with a lot
of buzz. While it remains to be seen if consumers are willing to
learn something new in gathering information Bing does have some
unique properties for searches of health information and may, just
may, give Google a run for its money
.
Read
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