Pfizer Invites This Blogger to Chantix Media Roundtable Discussion

Last week, I posted an open letter to Pfizer asking to be invited into the Chantix discussion "tent" (see "Dear Pfizer: Please invite me to your Chantix round-table media discussion"). So far, no response from Pfizer.

But I did not just make a snarky-serious blog post in my attempt to get into the tent. I called at least 3 people in Pfizer corporate communications department, including two calls to cell phones of 2 of them!

I also e-mailed about 4 "media" reporters at the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.com who wrote stories about Chantix and Pfizer's intention to "reach out" to the media asking for help contacting the right person at Pfizer.

Finally, I hooked up with Francisco Gebauer at Pfizer who sent me an invitation!

WHAT:

• Pfizer Roundtable Discussion
• Pfizer will host a panel discussion to review the benefit-risk profile of Chantix

WHO:

• Joseph Feczko, Pfizer Chief Medical Officer
• Sally Susman, Pfizer Chief Communications Officer
• Gretchen Dieck, SVP Pfizer Safety and Risk Management
• Ponni Subbiah, VP Pfizer Medical

WHEN:

• Thursday, June 5, 2008 * 9:30 – 11:00 AM

WHERE:

• Pfizer Headquarters * 235 East 42nd Street

I suppose I'll have to dress up so as not to get delayed at Pfizer security!

More important, however, is what questions I ask them about Chantix? Here are a couple that come to mind:

1. Will the current perceived safety problems of Chantix require some kind of innovative DTC advertising like that for Celebrex?
2. How about a Chantix Blog similar to the alli blog? Is it time for Pfizer to engage patients in that kind of transparent discussion of the risks vs, benefits?

Kudos to any reader who provides me the most blogworthy question!

NOTE: If you are a media type also attending this roundtable, please don't steal my questions for your own use! They are copyrighted!

Dear Pfizer: Please invite me to your Chantix round-table media discussion

The Wall Street Journal reported today that in the wake of questions about Chantix's safety, Pfizer "plans Thursday to run ads in five major newspapers in which its medical director explains Chantix's risk-benefit balance. Next week, the company will start hosting round-table discussions on Chantix for members of the media." [my emphasis; see "Pfizer Seeks to Counter Chantix Concerns".]

Regular readers of Pharma Marketing Blog know that I like to be invited to piss inside the tent rather than pissing outside it (see, for example, "Innerstate Private Screening: Philadelphia Style"). When I say "piss," I mean "dis" Chantix as in "Chantix Road Rage - Revisted."

If Centocor and Michael Moore can invite me inside their tents, I hope Pfizer will invite me to participate in its roundtable discussion with the media. I assume that the "regular" media bloggers over at Pharmalot and WSJ Health Blog have already been invited.

The following is my open letter request to the Pfizer corporate communications folk:

Oh Pfizer, won’t you invite me to your Chantix roundtable?
My friends all are media types, I must make amends.
Worked hard on my blog, no help from the press,
So Pfizer, won’t you please invite me to your table?

Oh Pfizer, won’t you send me your new Chantix DTC ad for TV?
The yokels at the FDA won't talk to me.
I wait for delivery each day until three,
So oh Pfizer, won’t you send me your new Chantix DTC?

Oh Pfizer, won’t you buy me a dinner in New York town?
I’m counting on you, Pfizer, please don’t let me down.
Prove that you love me and buy the next round,
Oh Pfizer, won’t you buy me a dinner in New York town?

Everybody!
Oh Pfizer, won’t you invite me to your Chantix roundtable?
My friends all are media types, I must make amends.
Worked hard on my blog, no help from the press,
So Pfizer, won’t you please invite me to your table?

That’s it!

Apologies to Janis Joplin.

Blogs are Done! What’s Next for Pharma Marketing?

Even before the pharmaceutical industry has fully embraced blogs and learned to use them for product promotion, customer support, disease awareness education, and public relations, BusinessWeek refers to their 2005 story "Blogs Will Change Your Business" as an "outdated relic" (see "BusinessWeek: Beyond Blogs").

"But blogs, it turns out, are just one of the do-it-yourself tools to emerge on the Internet. Vast social networks such as Facebook and MySpace offer people new ways to meet and exchange information. Sites like LinkedIn help millions forge important work relationships and alliances. New applications pop up every week. While only a small slice of the population wants to blog, a far larger swath of humanity is eager to make friends and contacts, to exchange pictures and music, to share activities and ideas."

Are Blogs Done?
Steve Rubel, a PR executive and leading blog evangelist doesn't blog much anymore, according to BusinessWeek. "He lets his popular Micropersuasion site sit fallow for days on end. That would have been sacrilege when we wrote our article. Back then he was posting a dozen times a day—even from bed."

lately, I've been neglecting my blog as well. Can it be, as BusinessWeek claims, that MEGABLOGS are squeezing out the lone blogger? Regardin Rubel, BusinessWeek says "In 2005, a smart and hyperactive PR guy with a blog could actually be a leader in tech coverage. Rubel came up with scoops. Since then, megablogs with paid staffs, such as Michael Arrington's TechCrunch and Om Malik's GigaOm, have become titans."

Yes, it's damn hard keeping up with the Pharmalots and WSJ Health Blogs in the Pharma Blogosphere^TM space. I cannot possible hope to beat them at scoops -- although, sometimes I do (and I gloat about it when I do; see "Sepracor Not So Keen to Spend Big on DTC for Its Next Product!"). But I can offer my own unique perspective that's unencumbered by kowtowing occasionally to news sources (ie, pharma executives and corporate communications people).

But I am neglecting my blog as I simultaneously delve deeper into online social networking tools while organizing a real-world networking event: The 4th Annual Networking Dinner Reception (Princeton, NJ * June 4, 2008 * 6:00 PM - 9:30 PM).

To promote this event AND to make it more successful for attendees, I have used the following "beyond the blog" tools, some of which you can classify as Web 3.0 applications:

My Google Map -- this is a map I created that shows the location of all registered attendees along with their names, titles, photos, and public profiles that I obtained from LinkedIn. I invited each attendee to collaborate with me on the map by adding information to their pop-up profiles that users see when they click on the map. You can see the map and read more about how I intend to use it after the event here: "Using Google Maps to Build a Vendor Village".

Widgets, widgets, widgets! -- You see these things everywhere! I have a few of them running in the left-hand column of this blog and on my various other web sites. The widget at the top receives and displays news feeds about updates I post regarding my networking event. Every time I send an e-mail notice about the event out to subscribers of Pharma Marketing News, I add that message to this news feed and it is instantly available to the much wider universe of my web site visitors, which number about 200,000 per month compared to about 5,000 opt-in subscribers to my newsletter. Soon, I will be doing the same thing for ALL the e-mail notices/ads I send out to subscribers -- maybe blogs are not done yet, but e-mail sure is! My audience now can choose to receive messages from me 3 ways: by e-mail, by news feed, or by accessing widgets on my web sites!

Social Networking Forums -- I signed up every registered attendee to the Pharma Marketing Forums social network site. They can use the tools there to hook up with other attendees BEFORE the meeting and make them their online "buddies" AFTER the meeting to continue to carry on the discussion. For more on that see this update.

Twitter -- I am now "tweeting" on Twitter -- you can see my recent tweets on the left. According to BusinessWeek "A Dell (DELL) employee who goes by the Twitter name of Ggroovin tells us that Dell's service on Twitter has brought in half a million dollars of new orders in the past year. Some on Twitter sniff around for the next job. 'The new résumé is 140 characters,' tweets 23-year-old Amanda Mooney, who just landed a job in PR."

I can't say that I have made money from Twitter, but I can see the future use of it for pharmaceutical marketers (see "I'm All a Twitter Over Twitter! Viral Social Marketing at Its Best?"),

Other tools I am using include:

• LinkedIn
• Cbox Chat Widget
  

Meanwhile, I have neglected this blog and it may never again be as high up there in my communications plan as it once was.

Last fall, I proposed a panel discussion on this trend away from blogs. The panel is entitled "Blogs are Done! What’s Next-Web 3.0?" and is part of the upcoming Pharma 2.0 conference in Philadelphia. I will be moderating that panel.

Frankly, at the time I proposed this panel, I did not have many ideas about what was "next," but in a few short months that has changed dramatically as the above shows.

I invite you to comment on this topic and tell me what's next for pharma. You can submit a comment to this blog, join the discussion in the eMarketing Forum, or use this chat widget (if it works here):

Professional Advertising Doing Well. DTC? Not So Much!

Last month I attended another black-tie awards ceremony in New York City -- the Manny Awards -- hosted by MedAdNews.

Three things about this ceremony struck me:

1. The awards were focused solely on the work of agencies producing professional (ie, physician-focused) advertising for the drug industry, and
   
2. I was a stranger in a strange land!
   

Oh yeah! #3: Many of these agencies were doing quite well and were hiring! MedAdNews published the financials of many of these agencies and I noted that a good number of them had substantially INCREASED their headcount AND their incomes in 2007 vs. 2006

Obviously, pharma spending on physician marketing is alive and well and probably growing.

Spending on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, on the other hand, is DECREASING.

The recent May issue of MedAdNews lays out the facts in its 14th Annual Report on DTC: $5.37 billion was spent on DTC in 2007 vs. $5.61 in 2006 (a 4.2% decrease; see Table below).

Media-DTC Advertising Expenditure 2007 vs. 2006 (Source: MedAdNews/Neilsen Monitor-Plus; includes promotion via Website -- not including search -- and non-branded advertising.)

AbelsonTaylor (AT), which won Mannies for the "Most Admired" as well as the "Most Feared" agency, increased its headcount from 325 in 2006 to 252 in 2007.

You may remember AT as the agency responsible for such DTC classics as Abe Lincoln meets beaver in those Rozerem ads (see "Rozerem Ads Dis Lincoln, Show Beaver"). But you may not know that AT really specializes in professional promotion and its Rozerem ad debacle (see "Rozerem Ad Spending Exceeds Sales!") was its first foray into DTC advertising. Better stick to your knitting AT. Who knows, maybe the new hires are meant to beef up its DTC division.

Cline Davis & Mann, LLC, which won the Manny for Agency of the Year, increased its headcount from650 in 2006 to 735 in 2007.

The list goes on.

Need to Learn More About Physician Marketing?
It appears that I need to learn more about the professional side of pharmaceutical marketing because that's where the smart pharma marketing money is going. And a good place for me -- and you -- to learn more about that side of the business is at this year's Pharma Marketing Networking Dinner Reception at the Princeton, NJ Marriott on Wednesday, June 4.


Approximately 50% of registered attendees have indicated that physician marketing/education is their primary focus and another 14% say it's their secondary focus.

At least 2 presenters -- Paul Boidy from ReachMD and Shaun McIver from StreamLogics -- will speak about alternative ways of reaching physicians. For more information, please see the agenda for this meeting. I hope to see you there!

Trains, Planes, School Vans: Unsafe for Chantix Users

I have just learned that the Institute for Safe Medication Practices suggests that there may be "safety concerns (about people taking Chantix while) operating aircraft, trains, buses and other vehicles, or in other settings where a lapse in alertness or motor control could lead to massive, serious injury." (See summary of study here.)

The FAA, which reviewed the report, barred pilots and air traffic controllers from taking the drug, the WSJ reports.

If other transportation officials -- eg, Amtrak, school bus transportation supervisors, taxicab companies, etc. -- follow the FAA's lead, the Chantix "road rage" loophole I first reported on in April would be closed (see "Chantix Road Rage - Revisted"). At that time I suggested that real Chantix-induced road rage was not the problem. But using Chantix as an EXCUSE for real road rage was a problem.

It's funny how art -- or, in my case, spoof -- imitates life!

Using Google Maps to Build a Vendor Village

"Where the heck is John Mack?" you may be asking. "It's been days since he's updated Pharma Marketing Blog with his insights on pharmaceutical marketing."

Yes, lately I've been AWOL from the Pharma Blogosphere^TM busy organizing the 4th Annual Pharma Networking Dinner Reception.

This event helps me fulfill my promise of maintaining a "community" of pharmaceutical marketing experts.

A side benefit is that I get to learn new things -- especially about how to integrate Web 2.0/social media tools with a real-world get together to improve the ability of attendees to network before, during, and after the event.

One example of what I am talking about is the use of "user-generated" interactive Google Maps such as the one shown here that I created for the event. This Attendee Location Map contains markers showing the locations of registered attendees to date for the Networking Dinner Reception. The markers are color-coded and can be logos like the one I use to mark the location of the event in Princeton, NJ.

When you click on a marker, an information balloon opens showing information about each attendee, including the attendee's name, job title, interests, and more. If the attendee has a public LinkedIn profile and photo, I include a link to them. I also send the attendee a request to join my network of colleagues on LinkedIn! This is a great way for attendees to get to know one another BEFORE the June 4 meeting.

What's "Web 2.0" about this map is the ability to invite attendees to collaborate on constructing the map and up-dating their information boxes, which I hope they will do.

Since the map is available to anyone visiting Pharma Marketing Network (here), it also helps attendees get noticed on the Internet. I am told it may also help in Google searches, but I think there's more work attendees need to do to optimize the map for that. But I leave that up to them!

Here's another idea: After the meeting, I will invite all attendees to embed in the map their Vendor Elevator Pitch Videos created at the dinner!

If user-generated maps work out for attendees of this meeting, I plan to create other Google Maps to promote businesses through Pharma Marketing Network.

So far, feedback from attendees has been very good. Bill Kush, Managing Partner at Medipix Solutions, for example, had to say:

"You're doing a fantastic job on everything and are a real boon to vendors and pharma. Thanks and keep up a great service."

CHALLENGE: Find Bill on the map and use the Google's Distance Measurement Tool to find the distance in miles -- as the crow flies -- between his location and the networking dinner site. Email me -- john mack@virsci.com -- the answer by Midnight, May 23 and get a $15 discount off the regular registration fee! See CONTEST details here (the same rules apply to locating Bill as apply to locating the attendee farthest from the event site).

FDA DTC Review: The House that Troy Built

At the recent DTC (direct to consumer drug advertising) hearings in Congress, senator Stupak "alleged that Johnson & Johnson kept pushing its anemia drug Procrit as a fatigue-buster, despite the FDA's admonitions," according to this report. "Testimony on the subject came with a bunch of documents, which The Cancer Letter dug through--to find that the FDA's chief counsel may have intervened on J&J's behalf to keep the ads on the air."

According to the Cancer Letter:

"Internal FDA documents show that the agency made a series of unsuccessful attempts to stop a direct-to-consumer advertising campaign that claimed that Johnson & Johnson’s erythropoiesis-stimulating agent Proctit (epoetin alfa) improved “fatigue” associated with chemotherapy-induced anemia.

The advertising campaign, which is widely credited with making ESAs into the biggest-selling class of oncology drugs, was allowed to proceed with relatively minor changes after the FDA Office of Chief Counsel became involved in the controversy."

The FDA's Chief Counsel at the time was Bush-appointed Daniel E. Troy, who came on board in August, 2001 and who resigned in November, 2004, and is now a partner in the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP. That's him in the photo at the top of this post.

The timing of Troy's coming and going is important in terms of FDA's ability to review DTC advertising in a timely and effective manner.

At the DTC hearing last week, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) submitted testimony that documented, among other things, how long it takes the FDA to issue regulatory letters citing violative DTC materials. As the chart below shows, there has been a definite trend that correlates with the appointment of Troy.

(Click for enlarged view.)

Soon after being appointed, Troy instituted a legal review of regulatory letters before they were issued and this policy change effectively hobbled the issuance of these letters by the FDA. According to the GAO testimony:

"The primary factor that contributed to the increase in the length of FDA’s process for issuing regulatory letters was the additional work that resulted from the 2002 policy change. All DDMAC regulatory letters were reviewed by both OCC (Office of Chief Counsel) staff and OCC’s Chief Counsel. In addition to the time required of OCC, DDMAC officials told us that the policy change created the need for substantially more work on their part to prepare the necessary documentation for legal review. After meeting with OCC and revising the draft regulatory letter to reflect the comments from OCC, DDMAC would formally submit a draft letter to OCC for legal review and approval. OCC often required additional revisions before it would concur that a letter was legally supportable and could be issued."

As a result of this delay in issuance of letters, violative advertisements were often disseminated for several months before the letters were issued, according to GAO testimony. And by the time the letters were issued, more than half the violative ads/materials were already discontinued. Talking about closing the barn door after the cow has left!

Not only has it taken longer to issue regulatory letters after Troy's directive took hold, the number of letters issued has dropped as well. According to the GAO testimony: From 2002 to 2005, the agency issued between 8 and 11 regulatory letters per year that cited DTC materials. Prior to the [OCC] policy change, from 1997 through 2001, FDA issued between 15 and 25 letters citing DTC materials per year.

Troy's delaying legacy continued after he resigned, except for 2005, when there was a considerable dip in the number of months it took the FDA to issue letters. I attribute this dip to the Vioxx debacle in the fall/winter of 2004, after which the FDA was under pressure to do its job more effectively. As you can see, however, the ineptness of the FDA has recovered since then with a vengeance.

Former FDA Commissioner, Lester M. Crawford -- another Bush appointee -- who resigned 2 months after assuming office (and who later pleaded guilty of conflict of interest and false reporting of information about stocks he owned), said of Troy when the latter left the agency in 2004:

"In my estimation, Dan's principal legacy is having instilled in the Agency a deep and abiding respect for the rule of law, and for the limitations imposed on FDA by the Constitution, especially the First Amendment, and by our own enabling statutes. Dan embraced the responsibility, as befits an agency's top lawyer, of helping FDA achieve our public health mission with respect for the powers Congress has -- and has not -- given us."

Well Congress has given FDA new powers -- specifically it can now levy fines against companies for violations. However, if FDA cannot even issue warning letters in a timely fashion, how can it get past the OCC to levy such fines?

It's all good on paper, but smart-ass Bush-appointed lawyers and administrators know very well how to use paper to prevent FDA from using the powers given it by Congress. And yet they complain that they lack authority to do this and do that!

IMHO, the only way the FDA will ever be fixed is by getting rid of the do-nothing administrators, starting with the current commissioner. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!

Live Podcast This Afternoon: If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Improve It

Sooner or later I'm going to need to gather all my thoughts about why it's so difficult to determine return on investment (ROI) of sales and marketing campaigns.

The problem, says Mike Wexler, Founding Principal at Biltmore Technologies -- a company that provides sales and marketing analytics -- is most acute in small to mid-tier pharmaceutical companies that cannot afford the proper tools and processes to collect, integrate, organize, and analyze their data rapidly and effectively.

Today at 2 PM Eastern time, I will be having a LIVE conversation with Mike on my Pharma Marketing Talk podcast show.

Among the questions Mike will answer are the following:

1. What exactly are "analytics' and why are they important?
2. What problems do small companies typically have getting actionable analytics?

Obviously, Mike will also tell us about his company's solution.

Go to the Pharma Marketing Talk Channel Page at 2 PM to listen live to the podcast on the Web with your browser. You will also be able to participate in an online chat and ask questions!

An audio archive is available after the show here.

-----------------
Biltmore Technologies is a client of mine and I hope you can spare 15 minutes to hear about their services.
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I enjoy helping companies like Biltmore Technologies find clients through new media like podcasts, which are more personal than writing articles (which I also do).

Video podcasts are my next new thing!

At the upcoming June 4 Networking Dinner Reception, for example, I will recording video interviews with as many attendees as I can. Learn more about that here. I hope to see you and get you on camera there!

4th Annual (2008)
Networking Dinner Reception

• DATE/TIME: Wednesday, June 4, 2008 * 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM
  
• LOCATION: Princeton Marriott Hotel and Conference Center at Forrestal, 100 College Road East, Princeton, NJ
  

Register Now!

Ruth Day and the Bees Repeat Performance at House DTC Hearing

Some of you may remember back in November, 2005, when I posted snippets from an FDA public hearing on DTC (see "FDA DTC Hearings: Snippets from Day 1"). Well, yesterday's U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce hearing on DTC seems to be a replay of the FDA version.

You might say that Congress is re-enacting this investigation into DTC precisely because two and one half years after FDA held it's hearing, the agency and the drug industry have done precisely ZIP about the issues raised. In fact, since 2005, the industry and FDA have cozied up and are attempting to rubber-stamp FDA's approval of DTC ads under a payola scheme (see "PDUFA Payola!").

But enough about trivial matters. Let's focus on the testimony, and especially the testimony of Ruth Day, head of Duke University's Medical Cognition Laboratory.

I call Dr. Day the "Bee Lady" because she famously claimed at the 2005 FDA hearing that the bee in the Nasonex TV commercial beat its wings furiously when risk information was being presented but was still when benefit information was presented. Day claimed that the beating wings divert viewers’ attention from the risk information (see "DTC Pros and Cons Presented at FDA Hearing" for a more detailed analysis).

It appears that Day is sticking to her story: she retold her study results to the House Committee yesterday and claimed that the Nasonex bee flew around as side effects were listed, but simply hovered when benefits were discussed.

[NOTE: Day actually changed her study's end point since her 2005 FDA testimony. At that time she talked about the bee's beating wings, whereas yesterday she talked about bee flight. That's because Schering changed the commercial after the FDA hearing so that the wings beat equally fast when presenting BOTH benefit and risk information. It appears that drug industry scientists are not the only researchers who can use the same data but move the goalposts to prove a point!]

"All of these wing flaps and wing flashes and sparkly things essentially divided the attention of the viewers ... and thus led to decreased knowledge" of possible risks, Day said. [See "Drugmakers need to rein in ads, hearing told".]

Undoubtedly, a lot of care and attention go into the visual of a drug ad, like the blueness and clarity of the Claritin sky. In fact, recent Claritin OTC TV commercials play that visual cue to the hilt by first showing a subdued color scene that is cleared to crystal blue after the actor takes Claritin. Clearly, if Claritin were still an Rx drug, the FDA may have said this goes too far in making a benefit statement.

But how devious and clever DTC advertisers must be to employ such nefarious devices as variations in bee flight to subvert the fair balance guidelines of the FDA! Not many experts actually give marketers that much credit for manipulating the elements of ads.

Could it be that the drug industry advertisers hire "cognitive science" experts like Dr. Day to design their ads? Could be. Perhaps one day, Day will also move on over to the "dark side." Hey, it could happen!

P.S. Day never mentions why the bee speaks with a French accent. [Actually, since French fries became Freedom Fries, the bee is mute!]

P.P.S. For those of you who claim the Nasonex bee is Spanish (see comments), here's the Spanish version of my cartoon on the left.

'Twas the night before layoffs.....

Found on the Merck Company Board at CafePharma:

'Twas the night before layoffs and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

The reprints were stacked near the dumpster with care
Beside the ROME items, this just isn't fair

I hid my computer right under my bed
Maybe at checkout I can claim "it went dead"
My car it was free, and so was the gas
And now rising oil prices will bite me in the ass

When out on the lawn there was a loud holla
Merck security was there to take my Impala
"Have a nice day" the old man said with a laugh
I peered from the window as he cut the AMEX in half

The moon it was full, and it shined down on my home
And he twisted the knife as he grabbed my cell phone
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
A sleigh driven by Ken Frazier all loaded with beer

I rubbed my eyes and thought it a vision
Ken said "Thanks for being part of the Vaccine Division"
A sleigh full of suds, I appreciate that boss!
It's worth more than the stock options that I must sell for a loss

Failed inspections, bad press, and lawsuits galore
Have hammered the stock price right into the floor
"Optimization" is a buzz word, of which I've grown tired
Ken should play Donald Trump and tell me "You're fired!"

Oh it was a nice run, Merck once had great style
But then along came the results of the Enhance Trial
I thought a nice long career was gonna be mine
Now I'm riding my bike to the unemployment line

Maybe this change will be for the better
At least I won't have to hear about the next Unapprovable Letter

There's lots of advice these days for soon-to-be-"displaced" pharma people. Steve Woodruff over at Impactiviti Blog, for example, urges "Be Prepared - like, right now!" and offers 8 "straightforward" steps to build a wider professional network.

Let me suggest one more tip:
Attend the 4th Annual Pharma Networking Dinner Reception (click here for info) if you are in the NY/NJ/PA area.



If you are a "displaced" or soon-to-be-"displaced" pharma employee (in either sales or marketing), this would be a great place to meet people who really need your expertise.

I will offer you a $35 discount if you FAX me your termination letter from a major pharma company!

Pharma Experts to Speak at June 4 Networking Event

The agenda for the Fourth Annual Networking Dinner Reception that I am hosting at the Princeton Marriott on the evening of June 4, 2008 now includes 4 people currently working in the pharmaceutical industry or who have recently worked at a major pharmaceutical company. See the Agenda Update below.

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MAY 5, 2008 IS THE LAST DAY TO SAVE $25 ON REGISTRATION!
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Register today using the discount code EB558 and save $25 off the standard registration fee. This "Early Bird" special ends tomorrow, so this is your last day to take advantage of it!

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Agenda Update

• Paul Boidy, President of EVP of Sales and Development at ReachMD, will be speaking about Marketing to the "Long Tail Physician" Segment. Prior to joining ReachMD, Mr. Boidy was director of neuroscience marketing for Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America.

  Paul says he's an avid and loyal reader of this blog -- despite (or maybe because of) the criticism I have expressed about certain Takeda marketing programs. Paul was introduced to me by Fard Johnmar, founder of Envision Solutions. I first met Fard at the 2006 Networking Dinner and since then we have collaborated on a number of projects. Fard's introduction to Paul has obviously benefited both Paul and myself. It's another example of how networking can help you advance your business.

• Craig DeLarge, Associate Director, eMarketing & Relationship Marketing at Novo Nordisk Inc., has been invited to speak about the Life Science People of Color Project, the goals of which are to encourage and offer guidance to young people seeking to achieve success in the life sciences industry and to highlight the contribution of people of color in the life sciences.


• Michael Parks, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Centocor, Inc., and Marc Monseau, Director of Corporate Communications, Johnson & Johnson, will focus on their experience as the first pharmaceutical executives to embrace Web 2.0 technology.

To keep up with all the news about this Networking Event, subscribe to the Networking Dinner News Feed. Or visit the Networking Opportunities Forum.