Mar/31/2007 08:14 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
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.
Read
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Tags: Pharma ethics
Mar/25/2007 03:03 Filed in:
Current
DTC
Have to hand to
the folks at Takeda. Rozerem, in 2006, spent $110
million in DTC and only managed to get a 2%
market share. The agency that developed the spots
continues to beat their chests like they are
proud of the Lincoln-beaver campaign but believe
me they need to get shown the door and someone
needs to lock it to ensure that AT is not let
back in ! Read
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Tags: DTC Dollars
Mar/25/2007 08:32 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Some pharma
companies have actually managed to out perform
the S&P 500 but it probably wouldn't surprise
you to learn that the majority of companies are
not doing so well while their CEO's pull down big
bucks. Read
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Tags: The business side
Mar/24/2007 12:14 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
What if I told
you that the average compensation for the top 8
pharma companies CEO's is $18.3 million? Upset?
You should be ! At a time when the pharmaceutical
industry is desperately looking for a leader to
step forward it's amazing that these gentlemen
can pull down this type of money. An average
compensation of $18 million is more that 146
times higher than someone making $125,000...146
times !! I don't get it and frankly it's time for
shareholders and employees to look at the
compensation of these people and ask "are they
really worth that" and "am I really worth 150%
less then they are making?" Read
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Tags: The business side
Mar/22/2007 06:38 Filed in:
DTC
Environment
A
bill currently in the house would prohibit pharma
companies from doing DTC for three years after a
drugs initial approval. But what are the
implications of this? Far reaching I'm afraid.
DTC advertising drives consumers into physicians
to ask about medications and raises awareness of
disease conditions that, left untreated, could
lead to major health issues. Has the House and
Senate thought of these issues? Of course not
because it's easier to get on the bandwagon then
to approach prescription drug advertising with
reason and logic. Read
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Tags: DTC Marketing
Mar/21/2007 02:46 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
“When honest
human beings have a vested stake in seeing the
world in a particular way, they’re incapable of
objectivity and independence,” said Max H.
Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School.
“A doctor who represents a pharmaceutical company
will tend to see the data in a slightly more
positive light and as a result will overprescribe
that company’s drugs.” Such is a quote from a
front page story in todays NY Times. I guess the
Times would have us believe that physicians would
gladly give talks and attend events without
compensation. Now who is naive?
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Mar/18/2007 08:51 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
From one of my
readers comes a report from the
Business and
Media Institute that confirms
what a lot of us in the business already know:
the media is bias against the pharmaceutical
industry. However what puzzles this author is why
the pharma industry seems to have chosen a
strategy that involves retreat? Are industry
leaders so afraid of the environment that don't
want to make waves or are they more focused on
pleasing Wall Street than helping
patients? Read
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Mar/14/2007 06:50 Filed in:
DTC
Environment
eMarketing is
fast becoming a highly demanded position. Good
eMarketers, people who understand marketing and
the strengths of the Internet, are hard to find.
Some pharma companies are putting IT people into
eMarketing roles and this is a huge mistake but
shows how little these companies understand the
Web and its ability to connect with
customers. Read
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Mar/13/2007 06:11 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Well it's
started..this week the Justice Department has
issued subpoenas to J&J for marketing related
to three drugs, Amgen & J&J had to put
black box warnings on anemia drugs because
physicians were using the drugs off-label and a
jury has overturned an award in a Vioxx
litigation. It's time for the pharma industry to
circle the wagons but what is missing is the one
leader who can step forward and remind us how
many people are living longer and healthier lives
thanks to the drugs that are on the market
today. Read
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Mar/11/2007 05:28 Filed in:
DTC
Environment
When I first
arrived at Lilly to begin my DTC career one of
the Directors said to me that we should always
act like one of our patients/customers is sitting
with us in our cube. I have tried to carry that
forward with me in everything I do, but mostly on
websites. I learned via research with customers
that they want information they can understand
and "don't want to be sold" with product
expectations that the brand may not be able to
deliver to them. Read
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Mar/10/2007 08:14 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
According to an
article in August of 2006, the
Annals
of Internal Medicine "Off-label
use is the common practice of prescribing a drug
for an indication other than those approved by
the FDA. The physician rationale for prescribing
off-label is often based on the lack of
FDA-approved effective treatments, reports of
clinical effectiveness for the off-label use, or
both. A recent study confirms that off-label
prescribing continues in earnest, with 21% of
drugs listed in a data set being prescribed for
off-label uses, most with little scientific
evidence of efficacy. One then has to wonder why
the FDA issued a sweeping
safety warning about heart and cancer risks that
arise from overuse of a family of anemia
treatments that is the biotech industry's biggest
drug class with $7.3 billion in U.S. sales in
2006.
Read
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Mar/10/2007 08:05 Filed in:
Current
DTC
Well not only
are the Rozerem ads really bad but one has led to
an NOV from the FDA. This violation is so obvious
that one has to think that the brand management
of Rozerem is asleep at the wheel.
Read
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Mar/07/2007 06:05 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Eli Lilly &
Company purchased Hypnion this week in order to
get access to their insomnia drug that is
currently in development. With the market for
insomnia drugs already quite crowded with
competitors one has to ask the question "why"?
The Hypnion product does have a different
mechanism of action but then so did Strattera
when it was released and it has failed to live up
to sales expectations. In addition any new
product entering the insomnia market is going to
have to do with a hefty DTC budget and frankly
this author thinks that the days of big DTC
budgets for Lilly is over. Read
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Mar/04/2007 08:44 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Why do the
senior people at pharmaceutical companies feel
that employees "need sales experience" in order
to advance their careers? I don't understand this
mentality because it has no basis in reality in
todays changing marketing environment. The
problem seems to stem from the fact that most
senior managers have come from the field and they
believe that their company is a "sales driven"
organization rather than a "marketing driven
organization". That is a dangerous belief.
Read
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Mar/04/2007 08:06 Filed in:
DTC
Environment
Marketers spend
a lot of money trying to get patients to ask
their physician for medications but sometimes
physicians will lead patients down another path.
Those days maybe coming to an end as patients
spend more time online researching health
conditions and talking to other patients about
therapy choices. In addition many websites now
allow patients to rate their physicians which
could lead to a change in their health care
choices. Read
More...
