Impactiviti Daily 051910 Top Pharma News

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TODAY’S NEWS

Sometimes I can’t help but voice a bit of skepticism, especially when it comes to sexual disorder treatments. So, count me as less than convinced about this experimental treatment from Boehringer-Ingelheim – Data from pivotal Phase III clinical trials demonstrate that a higher proportion of pre-menopausal women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) receiving flibanserin 100mg reported both an improvement in their condition and a meaningful benefit from their treatment, compared to placebo…more (the single-question Patient Benefit Evaluation appears to me to be really…ummm…meaningful).

Lung cancer preventer for former smokers? Interesting – A drug approved to treat a range of conditions may also work to prevent lung cancer in people who have given up smoking, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday…more

AstraZeneca replaces Nexium sales force with telemarketers. And it works.

J&J‘s recall of OTC products. This is becoming a huge black eye, for a company that managed to keep quite a good reputation over the years. It will be an interesting case study of reputation management and quality improvement, esp. for a company that has been a leader in social media usage in this sector.

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PLUS

Red Meat – maybe this picture isn’t so simple after all. Intuitively, this result is actually not too surprising. AND – Are you in a Museum?

JUST FOR FUN

I only rarely get to see hailstorms. That’s what makes this video particularly awesome. Must be seen to be believed!

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Pharma Blogging/Tweeting: One or Many?

As more and more pharmaceutical companies dip their toes into social media, one of the issues that surfaces regularly is this: do you put someONE in charge of a blog and/or Twitter account, or do you make it more anonymous? Or something else?

Let’s discuss this. I’ll put out my thoughts; add yours in the comments.

I’ve always advocated that pharma companies should use social networks to humanize their companies, which means employing human faces and voices – having real, authentic, and effective communicators working these channels. People. Folks you can relate to meet, meet at a conference, carry on backchannel discussions with, etc.

J&J has been very effective with this; Marc Monseau has served effectively as the “voice” of J&J in the socialsphere. Recently, Pfizer (@pfizer_news on Twitter) has updated its Twitter account to include a face and a name – Jennifer Kokell, self-identified as tweeting from Global Corporate Media Relations in NYC. Jennifer works with Ray Kerins, who has been aggressively shaking up the Communications practices at Pfizer, including a healthy push into social media.

But the question comes up – what if a company’s social media presence is too dependent on one person? And here the fine line must be walked – on the one hand, social media is all about individuals and personality and dialogue between people – but companies are not one person. And people move on.

By and large, people don’t want another nameless, faceless monolithic channel in social media – some unnamed drone churning out one-way communications in the name of “the company” who has about as much relational value as a dead fish. So – how to strike the balance?

Here’s one idea for larger companies – have a team presence for your blog and Twitter account. Multiple people – say, 3 or 4 – who contribute posts and tweets about a cross-section of the company’s activities. These would be real people with names, pictures, and off-line appearances – but the team approach would reflect the reality that a company IS made up of diverse individuals, and would also make the social media presence less dependent on a solo individual (reflecting the hit-by-a-bus reality of the non-expendable individual). While J&J’s social presence is spearheaded by Marc Monseau, their corporate blog actually has other contributing authors.

That would be one approach for an “official” social media presence. What about “unofficial” social media representatives? I like what is happening at Novartis, where various individuals such as Brad Pendergraph, Colin Foster, Mark Davis, Erik Hawkinson, Ben Atkins and others tweet as professional and accessible human beings who work at Novartis (thus achieving some humanizing of the company) but who have a unique presence reflecting their personal interests and professional perspectives. In fact, with Novartis, the “unofficial” social media presence has far outstripped progress on its “official” corporate social media footprint.

We’re all still on the learning curve with this stuff and companies are experimenting and evolving. What’s your take? One? Many? None? How can a company project humanity and authenticity without too much solo-representative risk?

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Impactiviti Daily 022310

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TODAY’S NEWS

Big approval news for Gilead Sciences – Gilead Sciences Inc., the world’s largest maker of HIV treatments, won U.S. approval of an inhaled antibiotic for lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients. The Food and Drug Administration cleared sales of the medicine, given the brand name Cayston, the company said today in a statement. Outside advisers to the FDA backed the product’s safety and effectiveness in a 15-2 vote on Dec. 10…more

What is the future of “personalized medicine”? Probably, it’ll look a lot like this (encouraging story from NY Times). Plus, in a cooperative effort, Eli Lilly, Merck and Pfizer have formed an independent, not-for-profit company Asian Cancer Research Group (ACRG) to accelerate research and ultimately improve treatment for patients affected with the most commonly-diagnosed cancers in Asia…more

Of course, in this industry, there is often a mix of good news and bad – and “bad” usually means bad behavior by people who love dollars above sense: lack of openness at AZ?; secret tapes and GSK (plus, a “fixer” who spiked research?); research fraud by rogue doc; kickbacks and J&J; risk of depression assessment and Eli Lilly (are you alive? then you’re at risk!!!). Reminds me of some prior posts on the Gold-in Rule…

Novartis looking to expand even more at East Hanover campus. Including themed food venues!

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PLUS

I’m feeling much safer now. FDA finally comes out against “ear candling“! Next up, perhaps – a prohibition of USB-to-nasal-passage uploads??

JUST FOR FUN

Delightful (and BIG) pictures from Vancouver Olympics. Love the colors in the very first one. From Boston.com’s very nice The Big Picture section.

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