Update on the Pharma Financial Crisis

"The financial crisis currently spreading around the world has exerted negative impacts on both the pharmaceutical and biotech industries," according to a Life Science leader article (see "The Impact Of The Financial Crisis On The Pharma And Biotech Industries"). "A large number of R&D programs have been either cut or put on the shelf."

The chart below summarizes the number of pharmaceutical and biotech companies that announced restructuring plans between September 2008 and April 2009 (click on chart to for an enlarged view):

With regard to advertising, respondents to the Pharma Marketing News "Future of DTC Advertising" survey (here) are still pessimistic about 2009 (see chart below). While 52% of respondents who took the survey in 2008 predicted a decrease in spending, 62% who took the survey in 2009 predicted a decrease (vs. 28% and 23%, respectively, who believe spending will increase in 2009).

(Click on chart for an enlarged view.)

A "Hubble" View Into the Pharma Cosmos

Edwin Powell Hubble -- the astronomer after whom the telescope in space is named -- was the first astronomer to find observable evidence that the universe is expanding. He also observed what he determined to be galaxies beyond our own, opening up the study of space beyond the Milky Way.

Click on the image on the right, which was taken by the Hubble telescope. Each of those dots is a galaxy! Surely there is a planet revolving around one of the zillions of stars in one of these zillions of galaxies where there is a pharmaceutical industry and an FDA similar to ours, with one difference: that pharma industry has learned how to truly use social media to engage and have "human" conversations with patients.

That bizzaro-world pharma industry has learned how to deal with adverse event information it gathers from patients via social networks. It has also learned how to allow its employees to communicate directly with patients via blogs and carry on "human" conversations.

Now it may be that the bizzaro-world FDA on that planet is very inept and does not have any regulations about reporting adverse events or providing fair balance whenever a drug is named and benefits are mentioned. But I'm not talking about that bizzaro-world. I'm talking about another one on some other of those zillions of planets out there -- one that has an FDA just like ours! Maybe even a stricter one -- like the one they have in China were they execute people for violating regulations!

I'm no Hubble, but you can call me the Mulder of pharma marketing: "The Truth Is Out There." There's got to be a combination that works, somewhere. The odds are in my favor here. If it's out there, it can be implemented here. QED.

Thanks to my friend Craig DeLarge for the discussion on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/pharmaguy) regarding this. I invite you to join in that discussion.

Genuine Conversation: The Big Kahuna of Social Media Marketing

[Make that "Genuine HUMAN Conversation." See comments to this post.]

The best scene in the 1999 movie The Big Kahuna (see wikipedia review) comes at the end when Phil (played by Danny Devito) -- a world-weary "marketing representative" (ie, sales person) for an industrial lubricants company -- puts down Bob (played by Peter Facinelli) -- an idealist R&D guy.

Bob has just come back from a late night conversation with a rich businessman (The Big Kahuna) that Phil and his partner Larry (played by Kevin Spacey) have been trying to close a deal with. Bob, however, only talked about Jesus with The Big Kahuna and neglected to talk about industrial lubricants at all.

At first, you thought that Bob was making a genuine human connection with the businessman and that this would eventually win the account, but Phil views its as the epiphany of "ingenuine" human conversation.

Thanks to YouTube, here's the scene.

"It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down'," says Phil. "That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are – just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep."

This is precisely why, in my opinion, no marketer -- and certainly no pharmaceutical marketer -- can carry on a real conversation with people via social media no matter how many times consultants and new media mavens urge them to do it.

Show me a marketing person that does NOT want to steer the conversation and I'll show you a marketing person that should be fired!

Marketing is not about conversation, so stop trying to fit that square peg into a round hole. I'm not saying that marketers cannot participate in discussions and try to steer them -- I do that all the time. Just don't call it genuine.

What Pharma Should NOT Learn from P&G and Pringles

My fellow blogger Jonathan Richman suggested that pharmaceutical marketers should follow the lead of P&G to create banner ads similar to the award-winning Pringles ad that Jonathan's agency created (see "What Pharma Can Learn from Pringles").

Jon, Congrats on the Pringle banner ad award! (See and play with the ad here.)

Jon suggests this ad could be a model for pharma:

"Imagine that Pringles was a pharma product for a minute. There’s no fair balance here, but it wouldn’t require it. The brand name is mentioned (if you click a few times), but nowhere does it include the 'indication:' potato crisps. I guess this makes this banner a reminder ad then.

"We pharma people love and hate reminder ads. We love them because we can promote the brand without the clutter of fair balance, but we hate them because we can’t get in any key messages. Regardless, pharma spends a lot of money on these. My point? If Pringles were pharma, this ad would be regulatory compliant. Just saying."

Pharma should not "love" drug reminder ads, at least those pharmaceutical companies that have signed on to PhRMA's guidelines for DTC (direct-to-consumer) advertising, which banned them on TV (but not, alas, in print or on the Internet). PhRMA says: "DTC television advertising that identifies a product by name should clearly state the health conditions for which the medicine is approved and the major risks associated with the medicine being advertised." Shouldn't that be best practice on the Internet as well? After all, DTC advertising is supposed to be educational according to PhrMA.

Guidelines or not, I would say no to this kind of banner ad for branded drugs simply because of my general distaste for drug reminder ads. Reminder ads may be fine for brands as well-recognized as Pringles and Viagra, which have nothing really new to say about themselves. But for a new drug, or a complicated drug, or a drug with a new indication, etc., how can you justify such an ad?

I would remind readers, BTW, that P&G claimed in an UK court that Pringles was NOT a "potato crisp" but a "savory snack." That's because it is only 40% potato! Maybe that's why it has resorted to a reminder ad! Just saying.

Does Novo's Editing Suck the Life Out of Charlie Kimball? Yes, by Some Objective Measures.

Last week I compared the personal Twitter account of racecar driver and diabetes patient Charlie Kimball (@charliekimball) with Novo Nordisk's Levemir-branded Race with Insulin Twitter account (@racewithinsulin), which supposedly features tweets made by Charlie. In that post, I noted that the latter account is a distorted mirror of the former. In fact, it appears that Novo Nordisk is rewriting a select number of Tweets from @charliekimball to create the Race With Insulin account (see "Novo Nordisk Selectively Copies & Edits Kimball's Tweets").

It's no surprise that Novo Nordisk would edit Charlie's Tweets. After all, Novo is a regulated drug company and is responsible for the post made on its Twitter account.

But is Novo sucking the life out of Charlie's Tweets? A few of Charlie's more personal Tweets, for example, never make it over to Race With Insulin. These include: "In Denver airport on my way home. No one has ABC and the race on. It's all golf! Bleh." and "Just had a great mountain bike ride. 1 hr. 40mins. 20 miles. 1850 feet ascended. Lots of fun!"

What we are left with is a string of Tweets about Charlie arriving at airports, cleaning his suit, and taking his Levemir. Novo's editing, in other words, doesn't leave much that would make us interested in following Charlie on @racewithinsulin.

Is this a case of marketing "sucking the life" out of a person? (see "Was Nalty's Fart Video the Straw that Broke Merck's Back or was it Some Other Video?").

That's my personal opinion based on my qualitative analysis. There is, however, another more quantitative analysis available. The site TwitChuck.com, which bills itself as "an intelligent way of looking at spam and following on Twitter," uses "use a collection of metrics ranging from social interaction, to friends and followers, spam rules" to score each Twitter account you feed into it.

I decided to compare the TwitChuck scores of @cahrliekimball and @racewithinsulin to see if there were any significant difference between them. Here's what I found this morning (click on the image for an enlarged view):

Another quantitative Twitter tool is Twitalyzer.com, which evaluates the activity of any Twitter user and reports on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media. The Twitalyzer scores for @charliekimball and @racewithinsulin are shown below (click on image for an enlarged view):

The two main reasons why @racewithinsulin scores lower than @charliekimball is that the the former is decidedly less social than the latter. Novo allows @racewithinsulin to follow no one, does not allow direct messages from any one, and does not communicate with any one. It is, as TwitChuck says, "using Twitter as a one way information stream." Obviously, this is a safe way to use Twitter's advantages without having to deal with handling adverse event reports or off-label comments from followers.

@racewithinsulin is evolving. For one thing it is adding new followers, although many of them appear to be PR and marketing professionals rather than diabetes patients. On the basis of this alone, I expect its socres to increase over time.

However, if Novo Nordisk wishes @racewithinsulin to evolve into a inspiring resource for diabetes patients, it will need to rethink its editing policy to allow more interesting Tweets through from Charlie. I won't even get into the two-way conversation thing! It may just be too big a regulatory nut for Novo or any other pharma company to crack.

Acromegaly Answers Blog Raises Interesting Regulatory Question

My friend @skypen just Tweeted me this request: "John, interesting social media initiative by Tercica for niche patient community. Would love your thoughts." See his summary post "Compass launches blog and webinars for niche community."

I'll focus on the Acromegaly Answers Blog, which "posts blogs from patients, caregivers, patient service specialists, nurses, doctors and others who live with and manage acromegaly every day." Ipsen, a global pharmaceutical "Group" based in France, sponsors this blog.


According to MedAdNews, "Comments are approved by the med legal team and is moderated in collaboration between Compass and Ipsen regularly and checked at least once every 24 hours, usually every 12 hours, so that if there is any adverse events they can be reported in the appropriate timeframe."

I applaud that commitment to handling AEs that may be discovered via this blog. However, I believe that the blog's disclaimers about who is responsible for the content will raise some issues with the FDA.

At the bottom of the blog page is included these disclaimers:

"Comments that appear on this blog are the opinion of the poster, not Ipsen, and may or may not be accurate."

and

"This blog is moderated. Your inputs may therefore not be posted. Still, you remain responsible for the content of your inputs."

These disclaimers -- especially the first one -- contradict what I heard Preeti Pinto, Executive Director, Promotional Regulatory Affairs at AstraZeneca, tell the audience yesterday at CBI’s 2nd Annual Bio/Pharmaceutical Emerging Media Optimization for Consumer-Focused Marketing conference.

Pinto essentially said "If you sponsor it, you are responsible for the content" as far as the FDA is concerned. She also said, I believe, that when you moderate comments submitted and post those comments, you are also responsible for the content.

What do you think?

Is Ipsen responsible for content on its sponsored Acromegaly Answers Blog?
	Yes
	No
	Maybe
	I have no idea!

My First Tweetup! A Good Idea for Pharma Media Relations People

Several stars of Pharma Twitterdom tweeted away continuously during yesterday's Emerging Media Conference hosted by CBI (see tweets: #Pharmedia).

In attendance were @askmanny, @swoodruff, @jonmrich, @philbaumann, @sixuntilme, and me (@pharmaguy).

I arrived a wee bit late and could not get a seat at the Twitter stars' table, which was equipped with a power outlet! I sat way off to the side where I could plug my notebook into a nearby wall socket to recharge my PowerBook's battery.

Someday, I will get a seat at the table with the big Pharma Twitter guys and gals. At least, however, I attended a Tweetup with a few of them after the meeting at McGillin's Olde Ale House, Philadelphia's oldest continuously operating tavern, where I poured Farmhouse Ale for the gang (see photo courtesy of @woodruff's new iPhone aided by Photoshop image enhancement).

What's a Tweetup? It's simply a real world meeting of people who use Twitter. It's a good opportunity to meet the people you follow or who follow you on Twitter.

This particular Tweetup was open to anyone in the Philadelphia area who heard about it through Twitter or wherever one hears about these things (I'm sure there's an app for that on the iPhone). One of the organizers was Neal Wiser, a digital marketing professional (@nealwiser).

At first, I was a bit wary of going to a Tweetup in an Irish pub, especially one billed as "Olde." Where I grew up -- in NYC -- geeks and Irish drinking establishments did not mix!

As us geeks walked down the seamy alleys parallel to and behind Broad Street looking for McGillin's, I wondered if my first Tweetup would be my last. Luckily, however, McGillin's and the Tweetup organizers had the foresight to isolate us on the second floor, away from the regular pub patrons!

Most of the attendees were younger than us pharma Tweeters. Surprisingly, there were as many women in attendance as men. It was then that I realized that Tweetups like this were good places where single (or married) men and women could meet for purposes other than sharing Twitter stories! Of course, that was NOT our interest! We appropriately sat at our own table and behaved.

It occurs to me that my colleagues who work for pharmaceutical companies and who use Twitter should attend Tweetups in their area. Better still, they should organize their own Tweetups.

Marc Monseau, Director, Media Relations at Johnson & Johnson, often invites bloggers to dinner at fancy restaurants (see "Thank You Johnson & Johnson for Dinner"). It's an expensive proposition that is perhaps a bit too formal.

Media relations people want relations with media people -- reporters and bloggers. What if, instead of inviting these people to dinner, Marc (and other pharma media relations people) organize their own Tweetups? Most Tweetups are held at restaurants or pubs that have separate rooms or areas that can be set aside for the group. You wouldn't do this at trendy places, but at places that need and welcome the patronage. Pubs and Taverns are perfect venues, especially for reporters.

One thing that would be a problem is who pays? Each of us at last night's Tweetup paid for our own food and drinks -- a grand total of $13 (including tip) for each of us (you can get a half-pound hamburger and chips at McGillin's for $4.99)!

Now that Marc has conditioned us bloggers to expect fine food and drink on J&J's tab, it may be difficult to get us to pay our own tabs at a Tweetup. Even the most destitute blogger, however, can pay his/her own way if we're talking about a tab under $20. Perhaps door prizes can be used as an incentive to attend.

All I know is that for $13 out of pocket, I had a great time at last night's Tweetup even though I did not win anything or walk out with a new BFF.