Pharma’s Digital Revolution – The Story So Far
pharmafile | May 12, 2010 | Feature | Medical Communications | Digital Pharma Guide, FDA, Twitter, blog, community, digital pharma, ipad, social networking
The internet and digital communication are transforming all aspects of pharma’s work. From social media to drug discovery, here are some of the standout developments for the industry.
Bloggers and critics
Blogging and ‘chat rooms’ first started to spring up in 1999, but it wasn’t until 2003 when they medium really entered the global consciousness. One good example of the power of the blogger, was ‘Where is Raed?’ an anonymous blog which detailed life in Baghdad during the US and allied forces invasion of 2003.
A good deal of blogging and web conversation is far from constructive, but it can also be home to incisive, original and informative comment – and healthcare is no exception, with the sector attracting both ends of the spectrum.
But it is the huge amount of unregulated information and unhelpful comments that, ironically, has been one of the strongest driving forces behind pharma’s drive to join the conversation. The thinking being that if the industry and other regulated bodies can’t drown out the misinformation, they can at least try to counterbalance it.
It experienced such a rapid rise in 2009 that you would be forgiven for thinking social media didn’t exist before Twitter burst into the mainstream last year.
Nevertheless the micro-blogging service’s reach and ever-expanding user base has certainly driven rapid uptake across many industries, including pharma.
In Autumn 2008 just two companies – Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis – had Twitter accounts; nowadays it’s unusual to find a pharma company that isn’t using the service. Increasingly common too is the use of multiple accounts for different regions or functions, and one of the front-runners here is Roche, whose corporate account is supplemented by no less than 15 other accounts.
One of Twitter’s more striking uses has been as a back-channel to follow conferences without leaving your desk. Attendees at a conference will tweet updates from the conferences, and by including a hashtag in their post will enable them to be grouped together.
Mention must also be made of ‘tweet-ups’, whereby users participate in a conversation at a pre-arranged time, again by inserting a hashtag into their tweets. Two standout examples of this for pharma are conversations based around #hcsmeu and #socpharm.
PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe is a sophisticated, second generation online patient community site which is forging partnerships with pharma companies.
In March this year Novartis became the second pharma company to launch a partnership with PatientsLikeMe for an online community, working with the site on a section for people who have received organ transplants.
It follows in the footsteps of UCB, which established the first pharma-sponsored patient community on the site last month in epilepsy.
Novartis’ transplant community will allow patients to monitor and share their progress and address common post-transplant issues, such as concerns about organ rejection or adherence to medication.
Novartis chief executive Joe Jimenez said: “We need to be closer to patients to understand their experience and their needs. An online experience allows patients to open up and share in a more personal and frank way.
“Our commitment to supporting this transplant community will shape the way we do our work, and ultimately help improve transplant patient outcomes now and in the future.”
The company recently partnered with PatientsLikeMe to launch a mentoring programme for multiple sclerosis patients, and this will be expanded to its transplant community.
PatientsLikeMe Mentors allows patients to create one-on-one relationships to share best practices and answer common questions about their treatment.
Dedicated roles in pharma
Over the last 18 months a subtle recognition of the growing importance of the digital world to pharma has come in the form of changing job titles within the industry.
Words like ‘social media’ and ‘digital’ began to creep into internet and marketing roles, edging out the some of the more familiar ‘e-marketing’ and ‘e-business’ titles.
Well received, although perhaps not greatly important on a day-to-day level, the trend does speak favourably of official blessing for those who are pushing pharma’s new media boundaries.
In the US, perhaps the best well-known digital figure is Johnson & Johnson’s media relations leader Marc Monseau. A former business journalist, Monseau was one of the pioneers of pharma blogging and web communication.
Europe has a number of its own leading lights: including Len Starnes, head of digital marketing and sales (general medicine at Bayer Schering Pharma).
John Pugh, global head of social media at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma, and Sabine Kostevc, head of Roche’s corporate internet and social media are also high profile exponents.
FDA rules
It is clear that the potential of digital media for the industry will not be realised until it has clear rules which legitimise and regulate pharma interaction with its various stakeholders.
The development of the first ever guidelines and/or rules for pharma communication via digital media are on the horizon – at least for the US market.
In November 2009, the FDA held a special two-day event in which pharma companies and healthcare communications agencies were invited to share their views, and make suggestions for guidelines. A number of major US pharma companies, among them Pfizer, Novartis, Bayer, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson, followed this up in February by filing detailed submissions on the subject, in response to five key questions from the FDA. (To see the submissions in full visit www.regulations.gov and search for ‘FDA and social media tools.’)
The prospects for similar pan-European guidance looks bleak, or at least should be expected on a much longer timescale. A number of groups in Europe are pushing for greater clarity, however, including a UK group brought together under the auspices of the PM Society, which is expected to announce a key development very shortly.
Clinical trials recruitment
Pfizer is hoping to unlock the power of online communities to help it recruit more people for clinical trials.
In August last year Pfizer unveiled its collaboration with specialist company Private Access to develop a site which allows users to grant online access to their medical records to doctors and healthcare professionals, but otherwise keep them secure and confidential.
The US pharma company is the first to pioneer the system, which could help address the industry-wide problem of recruiting the right patients for clinical trials.
Pfizer’s portal will also encourage social networking and allow patients to share their experience of taking part in clinical trials, which the company clearly hopes will encourage more to take part. The new platform and online community will be rolled out in phases, with the initial launch planned for late 2009.
Finding and recruiting large numbers of patients who are eligible to take part in trials is a costly and time consuming business. The cost of finding and enrolling patients onto trials more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, and continues to rise.
The number of clinical studies being conducted has risen to more than 35,000, making competition for participants greater, but overall numbers of patients taking part has been declining.
Finally, study protocols are also becoming more complex, often meaning that eligibility criteria for patients is more difficult to fulfill.
Nearly 85% of patients in a recent survey said they were unaware that clinical trials were a possible treatment option, and 31% of physicians surveyed did not refer patients to trials due to, among other things, lack of information.
Another study by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that the number one reason patients who were aware of trials were not willing to participate was fear that their health information would not remain confidential.
Pfizer and Private Access say they will allow other groups, including other pharma companies, to take part in the new community.
They say other clinical trial sponsors, patient advocacy groups, technology providers, and other key public and private stakeholders will all be invited to take part.
Other initiatives in the field are being launched as well. In February a new clinical trials search and referral engine TrialReach was launched to help patients who are considering taking part in a trial to find information.
Drug discovery
Lilly is trying hard to ‘think outside the box’ and find new ways of streamlining its entire research and development process. As part of this, in June 2000 it launched a new web portal which it hopes will attract drug discovery researchers with promising new compounds.
The initiative, called the Lilly Phenotypic Drug Discovery Initiative, or PD2 (pronounced PD-squared), uses Lilly’s disease-state assays and a secure web portal to evaluate compounds synthesised in university and biotech company labs.
Large pharmaceutical companies now devote a great deal of their time and money to identifying new molecules being developed outside their own laboratories, especially in academic centres and biotech companies. The new initiative is aimed at cutting down the time taken to liaise with these potential partners and screen the drug compounds.
The company is focusing on finding novel drugs in four key areas: Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis.
Lilly says the new secure web portal will also help uncover compounds whose potential would otherwise be missed.
Doctors’ networks
Online networks and communities of doctors and other healthcare professionals are now well established in the US and Europe, and are shaping up to perform an important role in informing medical practice in the 21st century.
As face-to-face access with doctors becomes increasingly difficult to gain for the pharmaceutical industry, these networks also hold out great promise for the industry to communicate with physicians.
Among the best established is Sermo, which was established in 2006. A US doctors-only site, it now boasts over 100,000 registered users, although only a minority of these are thought to be active users.
One of its core promises is that it will never carry any advertising, and relies instead on what it calls ‘information arbitrage’ to generate income.
This means Sermo sells on the information garnered from its online discussions to healthcare organisations, government agencies and financial institutions.
Doctors can also earn money by taking part in online surveys and market research. Sermo says physicians who respond to ‘client-sponsored postings and surveys’ will typically receive payments of between $5-$20.
Pfizer signed a deal with the site in 2007 to explore how it could best engage with doctors online, a move which other companies are now looking to emulate.
In the UK, two doctors’ portals, Doctors.net and OnMedica have been established for a number of years, while other European sites include DocCheck Faces, Esanum and Coliquio.
Analysis by Manhattan Research suggests that doctors who take part in these communities are exactly the ones pharma wants to target – findings suggest these doctors write an average of 24 more prescriptions per week than those with no interest in online communities.
A majority of these doctors also said that they expect pharma to monitor the community sites and even view this monitoring as a positive thing.
The iPad
Apple and its chief executive Steve Jobs look to have created another so-called ‘game changer’ electronic device in the shape of the iPad. Already available in the US and keenly awaited by ‘Applephiles’ in Europe and beyond, the iPad offers up new opportunities to use the web and a seemingly limitless array of applications or apps.
The iPhone and other 3G devices are already helping to transform how many different audiences access health information, including clinicians working on the frontline.
The ‘tablet’ dimensions of the iPad could also make it appealing for pharma’s frontline sales teams.
Salesforce technology company Cegedim Dendrite was among the very first to launch new applications for the iPad.
It has launched its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suite, Mobile Intelligence, for iPad and iPhone users.
Dominic Tyer, Web Editor – InPharm and Pharmafocus
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