Should pharma get naked?

Mar/31/2007 08:14 Filed in: Pharma Business
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There is a very interesting article in this months Wired Magazine. The cover story is "Get Naked and Rule The World" and it makes some really great points about corporate transparency in today's wired world where secrets are more increasingly coming out into the open. Should pharma embrace this philosophy and what are the potential ramifications for the industry and patients.




The philosophy behind getting naked is simple:
cover2Smart companies are sharing secrets with rivals, blogging about products in their pipeline, even admitting to their failures. The name of this new game is RADICAL TRANSPARENCY, and it's sweeping boardrooms across the nation. Even those Office drones at Dunder Mifflin get it. So strip down and learn how to have it all by baring it all.

What would this look like for the pharma industry and what can the companies do to become more transparent? Well for a starter pharma could update their product websites on a regular basis with the results from ongoing clinical trials. In fact there should be a page on every product.com website entitled "results from continuing clinical trials". Rather than report the scientific results however the results should contain a simple to read abstract so patients can understand the data. Is this risky? You bet but I would imagine that the litigation commercials for Zelnorm, now that it's been taken off the market, are only a few weeks away from airing.

Pharma needs to inform the public that even though the FDA has approved a drug that continuing clinical trials may indicate that there are other side effects and risks. Might this scare people away? Hell yes but transparency is a philosophy that in the long run can enhance a brand or company.

New products are often talked about at investor meetings but unless consumers are willing to dig real deep it's hard to find within a companies website. Yes pharma is restricted in what it can say (claim) about new products but allowing the public access to the initial data can lead to customers becoming working partners. Before we received approval on Cialis in the US for example there were a number of websites talking about the new products benefits among men with ED. Just look at all the insights that are surfacing on the Internet about political frontrunners Rudy Gulianni and Barrak Obama.

Every manager needs to learn how to manage risk but the CEO and senior managers need to set the trends of what is acceptable risk and what is not acceptable risk. Pharma needs to start opening up more to customers and especially the media who has been extremely critical of the industry. It's time to understand that secrecy is dead and the sooner that pharma understands this the sooner they will be able to become better companies that are customer focused.

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