Open Mouth "A", insert foot "B" & Other Monday tid bits from the news
Dec/03/2007 12:26 Filed in: Pharma
Business
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.
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