Mar/31/2008 05:25 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Leading doctors
urged a return to older, tried-and-true treatments
for high cholesterol after hearing full results of a
failed trial of Vytorin. “The strongest
recommendation we can make on this panel is to go
back to statins,” said Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, a
cardiologist at Yale. “They work.” Well if the
current pharma holds true the next step if for SP to
start laying off sales people and for sales to
continue to sink like a stone in water.
Read
More...
Mar/30/2008 11:46 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
According to Ms
Melody Petersen the pharmaceutical companies
"transformed themselves into slick marketing machines
and hooked the nation on prescription drugs". One
could argue this theory but it ignores that it is the
job of marketers to create a demand for products
where there was none before. Additionally if
physicians weren't so eager to treat conditions,
rather than patients, maybe the pharma industry
wouldn't have a lot of blockbusters.
Read
More...
Mar/27/2008 06:39 Filed in:
DUH !
This is why I
read John Mack's Pharma Marketing
Blog every morning
(this is from this mornings article):
"As much as I
like DTC Perspectives and other pharmaceutical
industry trade publications, I must say -- "with
all due respect" -- they are a bit remiss in not
doing this kind of analysis. Yes, they report the
numbers, but it seems that only people like me
have the inclination to calculate the relation
between 9 months of DTC ad spend shown in a table
on page 10 and the yearly sales number hidden in a
paragraph on page 6! I just assume everyone would
think to check the Sepracor stock price and see if
there were any relation to marketing
ROI." Right on Mr Mack
but I stand by my earlier posts that DTC
Perspectives depends on the pharma marketing
industry for money and as thus cannot be impartial
in its analysis of current pharma
marketing. Read
More...
Mar/26/2008 06:36 Filed in:
Regulatory
Environment
Anchorage Superior
Court Judge Mark Rindner said evidence presented by
the state of Alaska in the Zyprexa case had
established that the FDA ''isn't capable of policing
this matter.''. This comes as Lilly settles the case
with Alaska for a mere $15 million which is nothing
more than a small expense on the balance sheet. One
has to wonder why Alaska settled the case so quickly
and for such a small amount when they were suing for
hundreds of millions of dollars? Read
More...
Mar/25/2008 05:33 Filed in:
Web 2.0 ?
Chrysler will begin
recruiting U.S. residents in the next few weeks to
participate in closed, online dialogues to gather
insights for the automaker's marketing, product
development, vehicle features and engineering. What a
great idea and a fantastic way to get close to your
customers. Of course pharma marketers don't care what
current customers say they are only interested in new
Rx's, but you can learn a hell of a lot from current
customers if you listen. Read
More...
Mar/20/2008 10:54 Filed in:
DTC
Environment Web 2.0 ?
According to a new
study by Med-Ad News, one which this author
participated in by the way, DTC marketers are going
to spend more money on emerging media and online
media and less on print & TV. If you believe that
I have some swamp land to sell you at a great
price. Read
More...
Mar/20/2008 09:28 Filed in:
Regulatory
Environment
Senators Herb Kohl,
Democrat of Wisconsin, and Richard Durbin, Democrat
of Illinois, are planning to introduce legislation
that would authorize federal grants to prepare
educational materials and train health professionals
to conduct visits to prescribing physicians. Their
hope is that the program would pay for itself by
lowering drug costs to federal programs. Can you
imagine the federal government calling on doctors to
inform them about new drugs when doctors don't even
have the time now to meet with drug reps? This is
another example of stupidity and shows just how out
of touch legislators really are with reality.
Read
More...
Mar/20/2008 05:39 Filed in:
Pharma vs. the
lawyers
As
much as I would like to believe that trials are all
about "facts" they are in fact about beliefs and
getting a jury to believe that someone, or some
company, acted in a way for which they are liable.
The trial in Alaska, against Lilly and involving
Zyprexa, is not going well at all and in this
bloggers opinion it would take a miracle not to find
in favor of the plaintiff and award substantial
damages that could cost lilly well over a $1.00 a
share. Read
More...
Mar/20/2008 05:32 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Data on sales reps’
encounters with primary care doctors who write the
most prescriptions show that Vytorin commanded a 26%
share of chats about cholesterol drugs last week.
That’s right behind Lipitor, the share leader, at
27%, the data from research firm ImpactRx
show. But Vytorin’s share
of new prescriptions written by these docs was 6%,
less than half the 14% share just before the Enhance
trial’s results were released. Prescriptions for
Zetia, a sister drug of Vytorin and the part of the
combo Vytorin pill besides the statin, were 4%
compared with 7% before Enhance. By comparison,
generic simvastatin led the pack with 36% of new
prescriptions written last week, followed by Lipitor
with 24%. A extra life jacket on the Titanic is not
going to help now... Read
More...
Mar/17/2008 04:26 Filed in:
Web 2.0 ?
About 1% of all
blogs deal with health, according to a 2006 study by
the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Many
are by consumers writing about their own health
issues, but "the numbers of health care providers who
are blogging is steadily growing," says Fard Johnmar,
founder of Envision Solutions, a New York health care
marketing firm. Why not Blog? As hard as it to
believe physicians are people too and are as confused
about healthcare issues as we all are.
Read
More...
Mar/16/2008 07:54 Filed in:
Current DTC
The osteoporosis
wars continue to get hotter with the introduction of
Reclast by Novartis a once a year treatment via a 15
minute infusion. Will women opt for an IV once a year
treatment over a monthly or weekly tablet? Time will
tell but you had better believe that a lot of money
is going to be spent on both physicians and consumers
in the osteoporosis wars. Read
More...
Mar/15/2008 07:51 Filed in:
In The News
John C. Lechleiter,
an Eli Lilly official who is about to become the
company’s top executive, wrote an e-mail message in
2003 that appears
to have
encouraged Lilly to promote its schizophrenia
medicine Zyprexa for a use not approved by federal
drug regulators. This in common terms is known as
"open mouth A and insert foot "B" and shows just high
up the chain managers at Lilly went to expand sales
of Zyprexa. Read
More...
Mar/13/2008 04:08 Filed in:
Regulatory
Environment
It's easy to see,
based upon the latest FDA advisory panel, that
advisors are leaning towards restricting DTC
advertising. While advisors may feel that DTC ads
need to be reigned in a general restriction on DTC
advertising would lead to higher health costs and
could hurt patients. Is pharma DTC advertising really
that bad or is this a case of an industry being
singled out? This author feels that it's mostly the
former rather than the latter but unless pharma
starts to do more educational advertising and less
promotional advertising it just may force the FDA to
act and restrict DTC ads. Read
More...
Mar/10/2008 06:27 Filed in:
In The News
From today's New
York TImes comes an interesting editorial on Avastin:
The Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of
Avastin, a hugely expensive drug, to treat advanced
breast cancer has raised perplexing issues for women,
their doctors and the entire health care
system. Read
More...
Mar/08/2008 07:20 Filed in:
In The News
The trial between
Lilly and the state of Alaska over Zyprexa is
interesting to watch unfold. First you have a legal
team from Alaska that leaked pretrial discovery
information to the media (The New York Times which is
also covering the trial in depth), a state that
continues to use Zyprexa and has refused to settle
with Lilly even though Lily has paid out over a
billion dollars. So what is the purpose of this
trial? To call Lilly a liar and prove that they
withheld data to protect sales at the expense of
patients health? Or for an over aggressive attorney
to make a name for himself? Read
More...
Mar/06/2008 06:17 Filed in:
Web 2.0 ?
Readers of this
website have heard me talk about the importance of
social media in today's wired world many times.
Social media has far reaching implications in health
where lack of time with physicians is forcing a lot
of patients to do their own research on drugs. A BLOG
by an employee, although admirable, is not the way
for pharma to get engaged with consumers.
Read
More...
Mar/04/2008 05:52 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
You know things are
bad in the pharma industry when you look back over
the last couple of years as the "good old days". A
glimpse at headlines from various news sources paints
a grim picture of an industry that is in turmoil.
Here are some of the latest headlines and rumors:
Lilly's pipeline drying up, Investors losing patience
with new Pfizer CEO, Massacheusetts to ban all drug
industry freebees and changes in the industry forcing
talented people to leave pharma. This is not a
whirlwind it's more like global freezing applied to
one industry.
Read
More...
Mar/02/2008 08:22 Filed in:
Media
(TV)
As
broadcast ratings continue to erode and marketers
lose faith in TV as the go-to reach medium, the onus
is on buyers and sellers to show its accountability
and effectiveness. Of course this doesn't apply to
DTC marketers who continue to view the effectiveness
of TV with glasses that were made in the 60's. To
most DTC marketers TV is the only way to waste
dollars and make themselves stars. The Web? Oh yeah
they will have a push website that is based on
talking to rather then with consumers.
Read
More...
Mar/01/2008 02:37 Filed in:
Web 2.0 ?
This week I had the
opportunity to present the implications of social
media to a major pharmaceutical company and was
really surprised at some the questions I received
from the audience. The questions that were fielded
scared the hell out of me because social media is
part of our lives right now and marketers roles are
changing dramatically. If DTC marketers don't
understand this then DTC marketing is in for one hell
of a time. Read
More...
Mar/01/2008 01:21 Filed in:
Pharma
Business
Faced with the
looming loss of patent protection for its top-selling
drug, the antidepressant Effexor XR, Wyeth received
federal approval on Friday for a successor drug,
Pristiq, which the company hopes will also become a
blockbuster. According to Wyeth this drug has enough
differences to warrant new prescriptions but with
pricing pressure mounting they may have a hell of a
time convincing payers to cover Pristiq.
Read
More...
