Dec/29/2007 04:27 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
I
don't believe that any industry has come under more
scrutiny and attack then the pharmaceutical industry,
although a lot of the negative media was justified.
We have become an information driven economy and
there is so much information out there it's hard to
hide anything from anyone. Zetia data not being
released, Zyprexa data on the relationship between
diabetes and zyprexa and of course the Vioxx
litigation have all opened doors that for too long
have remained closed and sealed. Read
More...
Dec/28/2007 11:58 Filed in:
Insurance
Coverage
A
few years ago Katie Couric had a colonoscopy on
national TV to raise awareness of this procedure that
could save a lot of lives. I recently had one and
since I was put to sleep during the procedure it was
easy and painless. Now Aetna is refusing to pay for
anesthetic during colonoscopies and this will surely
lead to a drop in screening which in turn will lead
to increased health costs and more lives lost to
colon cancer. Read
More...
Dec/26/2007 07:27 Filed in:
Internet
& DTC Marketing
DTC marketing
budgets are going to shrink in the coming year(s).
Marketers are going to have to get more resourceful
when looking at core metrics such as reach and
frequency and when it comes to the Web DTC eMarketers
will be challenged to show that the Web works and
provides a positive ROI. In addition to programs that
provide Web metrics DTC teams are going to need
eMarketers who can look beyond basic numbers to
provide insights. Read
More...
Dec/24/2007 06:58 Filed in:
Life inside
pharma
To
all the readers of my BLOG I would like to wish you a
very merry Christmas. I write my BLOG because I am
passionate about the reason we are all here; and that
is to help patients make more informed choices about
their healthcare decisions. All DTC marketers should
spend some time with their patients so that they can
understand what they go through in treating a variety
of medical conditions. Read
More...
Dec/21/2007 06:04 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
With the
departure of Mr Taurel from Lilly next year the clean
sweep of all the major pharma company CEO's almost is
complete but unless the replacement chief executives
have a wide variety of skills the new class of CEO's
may not fare much better than their
predecessors. Read
More...
Dec/20/2007 05:46 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
How many more
"disgruntled" employees are going to file lawsuits
against pharma after they were fired? The latest
target is Pfizer who is getting sued for its
marketing practices of Lipitor to physicians by an
employee who says he was fired "after complaining
about the marketing materials". While his complaint
maybe valid the federal government has decided not to
join in this lawsuit because there maybe nothing
there Read
More...
Dec/19/2007 06:23 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Just how much
power do health providers have over what we are
prescribed? Well with a majority of leading products
due to come off patent, a lot ! Novartis therefore
has decided to target health providers by having
members of the sales force call on payers. Will it
work? Well it may come down to science vs. economics.
Does the science justify a branded product over a
generic and can a branded product lower overall long
term health costs? Now pharma sales people may have
to become economists to "detail" payers.
Read
More...
Dec/18/2007 05:38 Filed in:
Life inside
pharma
Finally ! The CEO
of Lilly, Mr Sidney Taurel, is stepping down and it's
long over due. When I was at Lilly and we lost the
patent on Prozac Mr Taurel made a gesture by taking a
$1 in paid salary. Of course his millions in bonuses
more than made up for his salary cut. Under his watch
Lilly lost patent protection on its best drug Prozac,
had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle
Zyprexa and Evista litigation and had data "leak" on
it's new blood thinning medication that caused Lilly
stock to tank. However, the final nail in his career
might have been his recent rant about the media and
how they do not understand pharmaceutical product
data. Read
More...
Dec/17/2007 06:41 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
A little while
back I was listening to Howard Stern on the radio
talk about prescription drugs. He brought up a great
point when he said "who knows what these new drugs do
to you with long term use". It got me thinking about
transparency and risk. Is there too much risk for
pharma to be transparent? People who call for more
transparency, like me, would say no but the reality
is that data can be read many different ways and
there are a lot of people who will always see the
glass half empty. Read
More...
Dec/15/2007 07:11 Filed in:
DUH !
According to some
recent information pharma has spent just 1% of their
marketing budgets on the Internet and that includes
search and online ad spending. This is indicative of
just how bad DTC marketers are and how ignorant they
are when it comes to new media. Is it any wonder that
year after year, when marketing and ad magazines,
announce the best ads and marketers of the year that
pharma is nowhere to be found? Instead the nightly
news programs have become a showcase for
pharmaceutical ads because somewhere DTC marketers
still believe it drives business. Read
More...
Dec/13/2007 03:29 Filed in:
Life inside
pharma
My good
friend John Mack and I have been exchanging
comments on his latest story that someone who
worked for Lilly bribed someone in Sweden to get
approval for Prozac. The conversation then turned
to notorious whistle blower Peter Rost from
Pfizer. While I don't know that much about Peter I
do know that everyone within this industry has to
have the courage to speak out when they see
wrongdoing or illegal activity. If we don't have
to courage to speak up when we are aware of
illegal acts then we should not be the ones to
point the finger when we leave the company
Read
More...
Dec/12/2007 06:02 Filed in:
Regulatory
Environment
According to
today's NY Times a Congressional committee is
investigating Merck and Schering-Plough for their
handling of a critical clinical trial of Zetia, their
blockbuster cholesterol-lowering drug. On Tuesday,
the House Committee on Energy and Commerce demanded
more information about delays in the trial, which was
completed in April 2006 but whose results have not
yet been released. This is another thorn on the side
of big pharma and Merck and Schering-Plough are now
going to have to work harder than ever to convince
people that the data supports the use of
Zetia. Read
More...
Dec/11/2007 05:54 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Environmental
changes are forcing change(s) at big pharma which may
be learning that "it's too big to compete". Dr.
Vasella, the Novartis Chief Executive, said he
realized the pharmaceutical division in particular
was bogged down with bureaucracy after he had recent
lunch with a group of its employees. One midlevel
manager mentioned there were six layers of employees
below him, which surprised Dr. Vasella. Surprised
him? Maybe he should have lunch with more midlevel
managers so he can learn some other tidbits as to why
it takes so long for pharma to react to
anything.
Read More...
Dec/07/2007 09:43 Filed in:
HCP
Marketing
75 percent of
pharma rep sales calls don't involve a face-to-face
meeting with a doctor, according to research by
Leerink Swann & Co. Industry executives
acknowledge increased demands on physician's time,
including paperwork required by health insurers. The
changes are partly in response to a backlash against
overly aggressive marketing of the past decade, when
many executives believed the company with the biggest
sales force would have the highest sales. From 1999
to 2001, U.S. drug companies expanded their sales
staffs, on average, by 42 percent, according to the
most recent research available from
Datamonitor. Read
More...
Dec/07/2007 06:36 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Ah yes, when the
going gets tough lay-off people. After all what
better way to make the numbers than by reducing
expenses via head count. Forget the fact that most
pharma CEO's salaries could pay for a lot of people,
after all they deserve the big salaries for declining
market share and industry woes. BMS and Lilly were
the latest to announce continued reduction in
employees this week. BMS through layoffs and Lilly
through attrition. Attrition by the way is a a fancy
way of saying that they won't stop their good
employees from leaving and do what they can to hold
onto employees who are "content" and comfortable to
collect their paychecks. Read
More...
Dec/07/2007 06:35 Filed in:
DUH !
Dec/06/2007 05:49 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
There was a
"Golden Age" of radio, TV and the movies and now the
Golden Age of pharma maybe upon us. Gone are the days
of the big breakthrough drugs like Prozac and Lipitor
as they are replaced with cheaper generic
equivalents. Rather than look for new breakthrough
products big pharma's model has changed to the
acquisition of smaller biotech companies and
developing "new and improved" drugs to replace aging
blockbusters. While DTC marketing was once a shining
light to inform and educate consumers it has now
fallen into a outdated marketing model of talking
down to consumers. Read
More...
Dec/05/2007 06:27 Filed in:
DTC
Environment
All too often
marketers fail to put themselves in consumers shoes.
Over the past few weeks for example there have been a
number of stories in the media about prescription
drugs including flu and diabetes products. It seems
that when patients start new medications a story pops
up about potential side effects which could be lethal
in some cases. Pharma has done absolutely nothing to
communicate to these people except spew the usual
public relations garbage and recent research clearly
indicates that patients are getting more and more
confused.
Read
More...
Dec/03/2007 12:26 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Montel
Williams was
the spokesperson for pharma's goodwill but his recent
blow-up with some college reporters is enough to say
good-bye. The pharma industry cannot afford anyone
bringing in more negative press.
Henry
Waxman is
getting involved in an FDA proposal that would allow
physicians to prescribe medications for off label use
provided there is journal evidence that supports such
use. The problem is that big pharma often sponsors
those journal articles. In football we call this an
end run.
Executive shuffles
continue at big pharma
and it seems that the only two CEO's who have not
been touched are at Amgen and Lilly despite the
downturns in their stock prices and performance.
Lipitor is fighting for
survival as
it's market share continues to decline in the face of
new competition from generic and branded mediations.
Pfizer has been running full page ads in print and
new TV spots but one has to wonder if they are
targeting the right audience. Physicians are the ones
who prescribe and health plans are the ones that
regulate what medications can be written.
The
FDA took a
skeptical tone today on Genentech’s
application to sell its cancer drug Avastin to
treat breast cancer patients whose disease has
spread. A panel of outside experts meeting on
Wednesday will advise the FDA on whether it should
approve the application. (Avastin is on the market in
this country for lung and colorectal cancers.) The
agency says that the drug did appear to slow the
progression of the disease in these women (the
primary goal of the study), but it didn’t appear to
improve overall survival. What’s more, 1.7% of women
in the study who received chemotherapy plus Avastin
died as a result of drug-related complications,
compared with none of the women who received
chemotherapy alone. That’s may not be the most
compelling combination in the current regulatory
environment reports the Wall Street Journal.
It seems that not a week goes by when I don't receive
an invitation to attend a DTC conference
somewhere. How can a
group that has so many meetings and conferences still
be so behind the times when it comes to marketing to
the new patient/consumer? Well part of the answer
lies in the change of people at pharma who have
either moved on to different positions or left pharma
all together. Another problem is that senior
management has never been truly sold on marketing as
a way to drive value to the brand. For big pharma it
is always about the sales force and will always be
about the sales force. Read
More...
Dec/03/2007 05:54 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Well it looks
like Avandia's days as a blockbuster are over. Last
week another study reported that long term use of
Avandia may lead to osteoporosis and this author
believes that this additional news will be the death
blow to a once mighty drug. What can pharma learn
from the Avandia decline? Well there are a lot of
lessons here including the fact that it's really hard
to change perceptions (DUH) once word leaks out.
There are just too many influencers out there who are
too well connected. Read
More...
