Defining " Patient Centricity "
Patient Centricity used to be a buzzword in that it was often mentioned but seldom practiced by pharma companies.A lot of progress has been made in the past years to achieve patient centricity, but not all drug companies have had much success. Unfortunately, that has had a negative impact on the industry ’s reputation.Timothy White, Head of Global Customer Interaction Management at Lundbeck, once said people on the commercial side of the pharma business have an “unhealthy obsession with ‘buzzwords’.”Worse than that, noted White, marketers cannot articulate the usefulness of the buzzwords they use.Two years ago I ...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - June 2, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Drug prices Lobbying patient centricity Reputation Source Type: blogs
Pharma's Reputation Depends on Who You Ask
Depending on who you ask, the drug industry's reputation is at an all-time low (read, for example,"Pharma ’s Rep Among Patient Groups Sinks to Near Historical Lows") or an all-time high!For example, if you determine the reputation of a pharma company measured by"the general public who are somewhat or very familiar with the company," then that company's reputation is likely to score much higher than if you asked the general public whose"familiarity" with the company is not a factor.According to Reputation Institute's annual Global Pharma RepTrak ®, which uses the former protocol,...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - June 1, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Reputation Source Type: blogs
FDA Has Many Hurdles to Overcome in its Effort to Stem the Current Opioid Addiction Epidemic it Helped to Create
The FDA has made many efforts to deal with the current opioid addiction crisis. The latest is the establishment of a"Opioid Policy Steering Committee." Some of these efforts may have been compromised by the influence of patient advocacy groups sponsored by drug companies that produce and market opioids. Such groups have gotten a seat on FDA panels. So, one has to wonder who will be named to the new steering committee.Listen to podcast below:Read the transcript, which includes links to more information, below.Read more » (Source: Pharma Marketing Blog)
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - May 27, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Source Type: blogs
PhRMA Gets Religion & Purges Low Hanging Fruit
PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry's primary lobbying group, announced changes to its membership structure that purged 22 companies of their membership or associate membership status.Now, to be a member of PhRMA, you have to spend at least $200 million per year spent on research and research expenditures must equal to at least 10% of global sales (click on"Read more>>" below for details).Back in January, John LaMattina (@John_LaMattina) former president of Pfizer Global R&D, writing in Forbes, suggested that big pharma companies secede from PhRMA."I cannot help but wonder if the interests of...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - May 10, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Drug prices Pfizer PhRMA Source Type: blogs
The Benefits and Risks of Limiting Pharma Sales Rep Access to Physicians
Pharmaceutical sales representatives are faced with increasingly limited access to physicians as many academic medical centers and other healthcare centers adopt conflict of interest policies restricting detailing. This is another benefit versus risk challenge for physicians who need quick access to the latest information about novel drugs. Listen to podcast below:Read the transcript, which includes charts, below.Read more » (Source: Pharma Marketing Blog)
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - May 5, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: detailing Sales and Sales Reps Sales Force Effectiveness Source Type: blogs
March for Science, Why I March
Live from Washington, D.C.I will be heading to a satellite march in Doylestown, PA and speaking there. Here ' s what I will say:My name is John Mack and I live in Newtown.On Twitter I am known as PharmaGuy – that’s P-H-A-R-M-A, plus “Guy!” I PUBLISH a newsletter for the pharmaceutical industry. And I have a graduate degree in Biochemistry.Every day we benefit from medicines andvaccines created by scientists who work in pharmaceutical and government-funded research laboratories.We need to discover new drugs faster and defend efforts that make those drugs cheaper and more accessible to everyone.In doing so, howe...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - April 22, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: March for Science Source Type: blogs
Speedy Drug Approval Versus Safe Drugs: Can We Have Both?
More user fees paid to the FDA by the drug industry and the push for less rigorous scientific proof in clinical trials may lead to faster drug approvals, but also more deaths due to side effects. Where ’s the balance between speed and safety?For the last few years I have been tracking data from the FDA regarding how much money it collects from the drug industry in prescription drug user fees to see those payments influence more than just how quickly the FDA is able to approve new drugs for marketing.One stark correlation I noted with the rise in user fees was the sharp drop in the number of warning letters the FDA sends ...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - April 19, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Adverse events Drug Safety FDA PDUFA Source Type: blogs
Making Sense of DTC Ad Spending
About this time every year, I get data from Kantar Media and Nielsen regarding how much money the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising.The data I ’m most interested in are the total spend for the year and what portion of that is digital versus TV. But it can be difficult to ferret out that information from the two different sources, which often report different numbers.Let ’s look at the total spend first.According to Nielsen numbers reported in the March 3 2017 issue of MM&M online, spending on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads rose 9% to $5.6 billion in 2016 (readDirect-...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - April 5, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Ad Spend DTC Advertising Source Type: blogs
A Drug By Any Other Name
The naming of drugs has been described both as a science and an art, which is also true about marketing in general.No matter what side of the brain is involved, there must be a reason why drug names are often ridiculed as being"absurd." The issue even made it to Saturday Night Live skit in which Oscar nominee Octavia Spencer sued Merck for naming dozens of drugs after members of her family ("Pharma Gets Drug Names from Octavia Spencer ’s Phone Contact List").Perhaps my reporting of that skit was the reason why my long-time friend, Jonathan Richman, founder and director of Dose Marketing in Cincinnati,...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - April 3, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Adherence Brand drug name Source Type: blogs
PharmaGuy To Compete for Recognition at Cannes Lion Health Festival
April 1, 2017: PharmaGuy is excited to announce that the organizers of the 2017 Cannes Lion Health Festival have chosen him as one of the finalists to compete for this year ’sOld Pharma Lions Award!Judges are seeking out the greatest generation of older, awe-inspiring pharma marketing communications pundits. This year ’s competitors will put their snarkiness to the test on a brief set by UNIPHARM, the world’s leading organization working to revive the reputation of the endangered pharmaceutical industry (for more on that, read"Pharma Industry Reputation Hits 7-Year Low According to Harris Poll").Participant...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - April 1, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: #LionsHealth Awards Source Type: blogs
Which is Bigger: Pharma Profits or R & D Spending?
On Mar 27, 2017, Public Citizen came out with a report that claimed"Pharmaceutical Industry Profits Are Nearly Double R&D Costs in 2013, 2014 and 2015". The email announcing the report said “Even the inflated estimates of R&D reported by the industry are dwarfed by the industry ’s profits, which, for the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies, jumped from $100.5 billion in 2014 to $123 billion in 2015.”“Big Pharma says that high prices pay for R&D, but it turns out they pay almost twice as much for sky-high corporate profits, ” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “The pricing s...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - March 28, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Profits Public Citizen & D Source Type: blogs
The Context Problem Foils Pharma Online Advertising
Click on image to enlarge.Last week I came across an article about Johnson& Johnson and other pharma companies pulling their ads from Youtube because they appeared adjacent to hate speech, e.g.; an anti-Semitic clip claiming the existence of a “Jewish World Order” (see the back story embedded at the end of this post orclick here).In an official statement Johnson& Johnson said it paused all YouTube digital advertising globally “to ensure our product advertising does not appear on channels that promote offensive content. We take this matter very seriously and will continue to take every measure to ensure our br...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - March 27, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Digital Janssen Programmatic Advertising YouTube Source Type: blogs
How Many Adverse Event Reports Are Submitted to the FDA? Whatever the Answer, It's at an All-Time High!
I've been tracking the number of adverse event reports (AERs) submitted to the FDA over the years based on data supplied by the FDAhere. The latest update of that data was made in November 2015 showing the number of AERs FDA received in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015.If you assume that the submission rate seen in Q1 of 2015 remained constant throughout the year, you get the following trend chart based on FDA's summary data table:Click on image for enlarged view.According this analysis, about 2.25 million AERs were submitted by healthcare professionals (HCPs) and consumers in 2015. An analysis by theMilwaukee Journa...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - March 20, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Adverse events Drug Safety FDA side effects Source Type: blogs
Gottlieb to Head FDA: Pharma Breathes a Sigh of Relief
Trump Chooses Scott Gottlieb to Head FDA; Pharma Breathes Sigh of Relief (Source: Pharma Marketing Blog)
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - March 13, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: FDA Gottlieb Source Type: blogs
DTC Advertising in the Era of High Drug Prices
TV and, to a lesser extent, print direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug ads have often been blamed for the high price of drugs. For example:Physician and pharmacist organizations say DTC ads are a waste of resources, which could be better used to lower drug prices or be plowed back into research (read, for example,"Pharmacists Say DTC Advertising Must Go: It's'Not Working'& Wastes Resources"). Some lawmakers claim that advertising inflates health care costs because consumers are prompted to seek newer, higher-priced medicines (read, for example,"DTC Advertising Moratorium Idea Resurrected in Congre...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - March 13, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Drug prices DTC Advertising Ehrlich Source Type: blogs
