May 2008
World of DTC Marketing | Apr 2008

With pipelines drying up drug companies turn to schools for help

May/11/2008 08:06 Filed in: Pharma Business
From this weeks Business Week Magazine:
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On a rainy Friday in early May, two scientists from vastly different worlds met at a bar near Boston's Fenway Park to talk business. One was Dr. Stephen Friend, a top cancer executive at struggling drugmaker Merck. The other was Dr. Ronald DePinho, a professor of medicine at Harvard University. The topic: a new alliance Merck and Harvard have formed in the war against cancer. This is nothing like past partnerships between industry and academia, in which drugmakers helped fund discoveries at the university but relied on their own teams to come up with commercial products. In this case, Merck expects its Harvard allies to stay involved throughout the drug development process. "We're creating a larger discovery enterprise," says DePinho. Read More...
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Working at Eli Lilly & Company

May/10/2008 07:35 Filed in: Working in pharma
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This past week I was asked if I liked working at Eli Lilly and although there are some things that I did not agree with at Lilly the answer to that questions has to be a resounding "yes". I was lucky enough to work with some very talented people at Lilly including a DTC manager who was extremely talented in marketing and a Director who had a consumer marketing background. However, I am passionate about the Internet as a tool to empower patients and as thus never felt that Lilly was doing enough to leverage the Web. Read More...
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Cymbalta DTC spot shows how good DTC can be

May/03/2008 10:31 Filed in: Current DTC
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I have to say that of all the DTC ads on TV right now the one I like the best is the "Depression Hurts" campaign for Cymbalta. I like it because it shows what depression can feel like and how it can effect others. This is what DTC should and can do, show what it's like to suffer through some of these conditions so that people can seek help via an informed decision with their HCP's. Read More...
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What's really important? Patients of course

May/02/2008 06:49 Filed in: Pharma Business
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Perhaps no industry is facing as many challenges as the pharmaceutical industry right now. The combination of blockbusters coming off patent, record increases in healthcare costs as more boomers retire and increased FDA scrutinization of drugs is leading to an environment that is hostile. Yet this author believes that the change in the business environment will make companies stronger and better positioned to compete in the future. Read More...
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The storm approaches....

May/01/2008 05:42 Filed in: Pharma Business
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When it comes to business you have two options: change or perish. Pfizer, with the failure of a successor for Lipitor, is streamlining management and reducing bureaucracy to be more competitive. GSK has hired an ex-Lilly executive to manager their European operations and is also reducing the layers of management. In the end these changes will make pharma more competitive but in addition to organizational changes they need to focus more on patients and less on Wall Street. Read More...
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