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August 2007 42 8 Issue of MMM

Editor's Desk

Communicating the Science

Having just attended the judging for MMM Awards 2007, I was on a high. For starters, it’s one of the ultimate thrills for a trade ...

Features

Med Ed Report: CME's Open Gesture

This year, to counter public skepticism, Eli Lilly revealed its educational grants in an online database. Now the transparency wave may be gathering steam, with ...

Medical Education Review 2007: Med Ed Mettle

While many providers continue to grapple with grant procedures, a number of other trends and issues have risen to the forefront in the past 12 ...

Designs from Experience

To offer maximum returns, pharmaceutical Web sites and CRM programs must be designed and built using the insights from the user experience, say Laura Keller ...

New Life for an Old Brand

Sometimes the best person for the job is no person at all. Julian M. Parreño looks at how non-manpowered selling solutions helped breathe new life ...

Headliner: Daniel Palestrant of Sermo

Heading a hot startup isn’t always a bed of roses, says Daniel Palestrant, MD, founder and CEO of Sermo, the online community for physicians.

Antidote

I have been discussing the Chris Benoit case on cable TV news, along with other talking heads including lawyers, doctors and wrestlers.

In Focus

Follow-on drugs, not hangers-on, says study

A pharma-backed study may fuel debate over whether follow-on drugs justify RD investment. The researchers said a list of therapies recommended for use in the ...

Med Ed Report

Will physicians use the iPhone for CME?

Apple has sold the iPhone to hundreds of thousands of people since its June launch. According to Manhattan Research, 75,000 physicians do CME on a ...

Senate pushes national gift registry

At a Senate committee hearing, panelists said drug firms should disclose payments including funding for education, physician travel and food.

Film to educate RN prescribers

Filmmaker and consumer health advocate Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau produced a CME documentary about drug industry influence and its affect on prescribers.

Bellande named president of CME Enterprise

Bruce Bellande, PhD, former executive director, Alliance for CME, has been named president, CME Enterprise, an ACCME-accredited provider.

Carlat launches The Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Daniel Carlat, MD, launched The Carlat Psychiatry Blog, after his op-ed in The New York Times suggesting industry-sponsored online CME activities should not be accredited.

Univ. of Pitt. Medical Center extends limits of gift policy

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is extending the limits of its draft pharma gift rules policy to informal, unaccredited educational events.

Wang named director for MedPoint Communications

Claire Wang, MD, has been named director of scientific and program services for MedPoint Communications.

PTR Educational Consultants publishes tools for providers

PTR Educational Consultants has published a set of tools it says can help CME providers comply with new ACCME accreditation criteria.

Professional Media

Publisher combats ad spend drought

Elsevier is rolling out a series of electronic newsletters and ramping up patient guides and other direct-to-patient (DTP) offerings as it struggles to cope with ...

PRI offers digital version of MPR

Haymarket’s Prescribing Reference Inc. launched eMPR, a free downloadable digital version of its Monthly Prescribing Reference database.

Consumer ad spend is bright spot for media owners

Pharmaceutical spending on consumer ads is a rare bright spot for media owners this year, but newspapers are getting short shrift.

Communications Media Inc. launches online newsletter

Communications Media Inc. launched CMI Insights, an online newsletter for the firm’s pharma clients and their agency partners.

Quadrant HealthCom hires Danielsen and Saunders

Quadrant HealthCom hired Randy Danielsen, PhD, as PA editor-in-chief of Clinician Reviews and Carol Silverman Saunders as editor of The Female Patient.

Krouse named VP, director of healthcare for Emerging Media Lab

Interpublic named Rachel Krouse VP, director of healthcare for its Emerging Media Lab. Krouse was previously a digital marketing consultant and previously worked at Omnicom’s ...

Media Forum

Specialization in the digital realm

With more of the business going to new media, agencies are increasingly turning to online media buyers. Does digital media need to be handled by ...

E-marketing

Patients prefer promo in online video, visual form

Patients preferred online video over podcasts in a recent survey of AstraZeneca’s “Living with Heartburn” promotional efforts featured on About.com.

MBC veteran leaves Digitas Health

Linda Holliday, co-founder and longtime president of the company now known as Digitas Health, has left the agency.

Web Watch

The job of the media department isn’t getting any easier.

Direct Marketing

Vyvanse prepares to lead ADHD class

Shire has amassed a 560-person sales force to launch its new ADHD drug Vyvanse. The sales team began targeting specialist physicians treating ADHD including pediatricians, ...

Ex-Abbott reps sue for overtime pay

Two former Abbott Laboratories sales reps have sued the company in federal court in Chicago, claiming the drugmaker denied them overtime wages.

Santarus reps pushing Naprelan

Santarus said its sales reps will commence promotional activities in the third quarter for Victory Pharma’s Naprelan brand products under a recent co-promotion agreement.

Wasti joins The Patient Marketing Group

Neelofur Wasti joins The Patient Marketing Group as senior account manager.

Publicis Selling Solutions hires Hopkins as SVP

Publicis Selling Solutions hired Dean Hopkins as SVP, sales and client support.

HealthEd adds new members to its staff

HealthEd has hired Chandani Rao as director of digital development.

PDI inks deal with 'top-five' pharma company

PDI has inked a deal with an undisclosed “top-five pharmaceutical company” expected to generate $23 million in revenue for the contract sales firm over its ...

DTC Report

Cord blood ads have hypnotic effect

An unconventional technique led to the counter-intuitive insight behind a campaign for Cord Blood Registry (CBR).

Physicians back DTC ban

A solid majority of doctors— 64%—say there should be some sort of moratorium on DTC advertising, according to a survey by TNS Healthcare.

GSK ranks 7th in consumer ads

GlaxoSmithKline was the nation’s seventh-largest consumer advertiser in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence’s Stradegy as reported in Advertising Age.

Consumer advertising of Rx drugs up, newspaper ads down

Consumer advertising of prescription drugs rose 6.3% for the year to the first quarter of 2007, with network TV spending up 7.4%, while advertising for ...

HealthiNation partners with dLife

Digital health network HealthiNation is partnering with dLife, the diabetes lifestyle media platform, to distribute dLife content through HealthiNation’s digital cable video on demand platform.

Three NY Dems strike measures inhibiting consumer ads

A trio of New York Democrats stood by Madison Avenue to strike measures aimed at inhibiting consumer ads of Rx drugs from the committee markup ...

J&J assigns ads duties on several OTC health brands

Johnson & Johnson assigned ad duties on several of its OTC health brands formerly held by Interpublic’s McCann Erickson Worldwide, Advertising Age reported.

Public Relations

InVentiv bets on PR with Chandler Chicco pickup

Snowballing InVentiv Health signaled interest in the PR sector with its pickup of a big independent PR shop.

MWW hires da Costa as vice president

MWW Group named Dennis da Costa to head its global health policy practice as VP in its East Rutherford, NJ office, with responsibility for the ...

PR View by Melissa Hill

When it comes to life science companies, change can happen overnight.

Marketing Research

Harris: open architecture ups research visibility

Most pharmaceutical firms use multiple marketing research suppliers, and many want suppliers to cull data for them. For those that want to do it on ...

Vantage Point

Yikes! A report recently came across my desk that served for me, as it should for every pharmaceutical marketing researcher, as a clear indicator that ...

Washington Insider

As I see it

Look for more Avandias. Regardless of the anti-diabetes drug’s medical merits, the recent furor surely opens an era of politico-medical soap operas that will ensnare ...

Gottlieb floats third class of drugs idea—again

American Enterprise Institute resident fellow and former FDA deputy Scott Gottlieb told a Drug Information Association conference in June that there is “fairly strong” sentiment ...

Drug firms slack on DTC guidelines

Two reports issued by PhRMA indicate that while signatories to its DTC guidelines are generally following them, they mostly have a long way to go.

Sens. introduce follow-on biologics bill

Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) have agreed on legislation to approve follow-on biologics.

Users blast availability of MedGuides

The FDA’s Medication Guide (MedGuide) program was the object of intense criticism from reps of retail pharmacy organizations, consumer groups and academic researchers at a ...

Penn. paying for counter-detailing

Pennsylvania’s PACE (Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly) program, which spends $600 million each year on drugs for 300,000 poor senior citizens, is spending $3 ...

KV Pharmaceutical e-mail alert overstated drug efficacy

The FDA says a KV Pharmaceutical e-mail alert announcing the availability of Clindesse on a formulary overstated and misrepresented the efficacy of the drug, which ...

Public Citizen files petition with FDA

Public Citizen has filed a citizen petition with the FDA asking that agency experts be required to give a scientific presentation at all advisory committee ...

Reps claim FDA met with industry more than other groups

The FDA met with industry 24 times as often as it did with patient and consumer groups in preparing its current user fee renewal proposal ...

Back Talk

How to recycle your skills

Some retired folks play golf all day; others travel. But there’s something about healthcare communication execs that makes them not want to quit. Instead of ...