January 2010 Issue of MMM

Editor's Desk

Five gold rings

When we set out to find our five All-Star teams for 2010, we were a little concerned that it might turn into an exercise for ...

Features

MM&M All-Stars Company of the Year: Novartis

Perhaps no large pharmaceutical company is so well positioned to survive the approaching patent cliff as Novartis. And it's no accident that the Swiss giant ...

MM&M All-Stars Agency/Network of the Year: Euro RSCG Life

Euro RSCG Life last year increased revenue by double digits, won a number of major AOR assignments and hired more than 150 people. Add to ...

MM&M All-Stars Large Pharma Marketing Team of the Year: Symbicort (AstraZeneca)

AstraZeneca's Symbicort, the second-to-market ICS/LABA combo behind GlaxoSmithKline's Advair, faced an uphill battle on its launch in June 2007, squaring off against a firmly entrenched ...

MM&M All-Stars Small Pharma Marketing Team of the Year: Vyvanse (Shire)

Shire is in an enviable place with its ADHD franchise. About three years ago, the specialty biopharma company received US approval for Vyvanse in children, ...

MM&M All-Stars Media Brand of the Year: HealthiNation

HealthiNation, a producer and purveyor of independent health video, is pulling in consumers with high-quality content, and an increasing number of pharma advertisers with a ...

Busting Silos: The New Agency Model

As online-advertising standards get closer to reality, agencies and industry also need to learn to work together to orchestrate tactics such as social networks and ...

Antidote

Antidote: Safe to combine to Prilosec with Plavix?

In mid-November, the FDA came out with a strong warning against using Prilosec (omeprazole) in combination with the anti-clotting drug Plavix (clopidogrel).

In Focus

ARBITER leaves few marks on Merck

The nature and amount of press coverage is often a key factor in assessing how clinical trial results impact a product's prescription trends.

Professional Marketing

King launches Embeda with kid gloves

King's launch of Embeda, a pain drug containing morphine, demonstrates that even supposedly abuse-resistant narcotic products need to take a careful approach in their marketing.

Sanofi-Aventis sales cuts come due, 750 reps slashed

Sanofi-Aventis said it would lay off 750, or nearly 12%, of its US sales reps, as the firm retrenches in the face of generic exposure ...

Professional Marketing briefs

Featuring news about Cegedim Dendrite, Eisai, Celgene and Gloucester Pharmaceuticals

Med Ed Report

IOM report favors government role in CME

A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report focused on reforming CME offers a new catalyst for change: a public-private institute that would alter the way ...

GlaxoSmithKline reveals speaker, consulting fees

GlaxoSmithKline said it paid nearly $15 million in fees in the second quarter to US healthcare professionals for speaking and consulting services.

Med Ed Report briefs

Featuring news about the AMA, American Cancer Society, the Canadian Medical Association, Pri-Med and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Professional Media

eMPR now available in iPhone app

The MPR database of 4,000 drug products is now accessible via the iPhone mobile device.

Journal 'conflict' policies vary

Authors writing for most of the top medical journals are required to disclose relationships with industry or other organizations that could pose conflicts of interest, ...

Professional Media briefs

Featuring news about Quadrant HealthCom, Dowden Health Media, Lebhar-Friedman, Elsevier, Embase, Harvard and Johns Hopkins

Media Forum

Will social networks produce ROI?

For all the talk about Twitter, Facebook and Sermo as marketing channels of the future, will social networks ever provide a viable platform for promoting ...

Digital Media

FDA, Everyday Health partner on site

FDA announced a collaboration with Everyday Health aimed at pushing FDA information on health topics out to the health portal's 30 million or so monthly ...

CBS takes online ads in-house

CBS Interactive said it would jettison third-party advertising networks and instead handle ad sales for its properties, including CBS.com, CBSNews.com, CNET.com and TV.com, in-house.

Chantix latest Rx on video network

Chantix became the latest pharmaceutical advertised on the HealthiNation health-video network, with the brand's banner ad running beneath clips on quitting smoking and losing weight.

Digital Media briefs

Featuring news about Microsoft, Sentillion, comScore, AOL, Google and WebMD

Consumer Marketing

DDR on DTC: Abilify and Lipitor

One of the biggest problems for DTC marketers is that there is no packaging for consumers to bond with (remember the "eighth P" of the ...

Sanofi iPhone app offers diabetics carb counting

Sanofi-Aventis launched an iPhone application aimed at helping diabetics count calories on the go.

TV viewers suffer risk info overload from pharma ads

Consumers tend to block out risk info in TV and print ads for prescription drugs—particularly those over age 55—according to a study by ORC Guideline.

GSK unveils $12M 'Sucks less' effort

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare is taking an irreverent tone with its latest ads for Nicorette, featuring the tagline "Makes Quitting Suck Less."

Pfizer among top 10 advertisers in 2009

Pfizer boosted ad spend 12% for the first nine months of 2009 over the same period in 2008, even as ad spend for the sector ...

Consumer Marketing briefs

Featuring news about Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer, Deutsch and GlaxoSmithKline

Marketing Research

Vantage Point: Medicare Part D

Over the past decade, numerous changes have impacted the healthcare market and driven marketplace volatility. Among them, managed care continues to influence brand success, and ...

NJ data regs may not pose threat for HIOs

New Jersey's Division of Consumer Affairs recommended tight controls on data-mining, among other limits designed to prevent conflicts of interest in medicine. But health information ...

Co-pay programs spur new offering

Pharma's increased investment in co-pay card programs has led research firm TargetRx to launch a product offering more insight into their adoption and use.

Agency Business

CorbettAccel's Corbett dead at 92

Medical advertising pioneer Frank J. Corbett passed away in December.

Russell replaces Saatch & Saatchii's Joseph

Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness EVP director of client service Ned Russell was promoted to EVP managing director after Jim Joseph left the firm to join ...

Agency Business briefs

Featuring news about Novartis, Harrison & Star, Partners + simons, LehmanMillet, Myriad Genetics, Cadient Interactive and Hatch Consulting

Washington Insider

As I see it: FDA and social media

Having held the Super Bowl of Part 15 hearings on social media, the big question is, what's the FDA's next move?

Drug 'safe use' initiative launched

"Reducing preventable harm from prescription and OTC medication use is an FDA priority," according to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

Viewpoint

Google's Sidewiki and the real innovations

When Google launched Sidewiki in September, pharma professionals were up in arms over managing the fallout.

New guidelines create NOW moment for advocacy

The changes in mammography guidelines by the US Preventative Systems Task Force (USPSTF) announced in late November were not surprisingly met with great confusion, frustration ...