Digital Pharma: Merck Serono sets up MS social network
pharmafile | February 18, 2011 | News story | Medical Communications | Digital Pharma blog, MS, Merck Serono, Movectro, Rebif, multiple sclerosis, social networking
Merck Serono has set up an international social network for multiple sclerosis patients, saying today’s pharma companies should go beyond “offering therapies to treat or cure diseases”.
Unite MS will allow patients to create their own profile on the site, connect with fellow sufferers, rate content, ask questions to experts, contribute blog posts and share experiences.
Merck Serono explicitly acknowledged the importance of social networking in MS patients’ ‘journey’, and said UniteMS was intended for the entire MS community without excluding anyone based on treatment choice.
“Merck Serono is dedicated to constantly and effectively contributing to the well-being of the communities we serve,” said Dr Roberto Gradnik, executive VP for neurodegenerative diseases at Merck Serono. “As the MS community continues to look to social networks to stay informed and connected, we see it as our responsibility to provide a vehicle that helps them do so more efficiently than ever.”
Merck Serono’s main stake in MS is through the injectible treatment Rebif (interferon beta-1a), but its ambitions to bring an oral drug to the market have just suffered a major setback.
The company is withdrawing its European licence application for Movectro (cladribine) after its appeal over the CHMP’s negative decision on the treatment failed and the company is still waiting for an FDA decision on the drug.
Unite MS social network
The company hopes its new social network will change the way pharma interacts with the communities it serves.
Looking to place trust high on the agenda, Merck Serono has appointed two independent community managers to oversee UniteMS – Donna Sullivan and Jamie Tripp Utitus, who are also the public face of its Twitter account.
The company has set out a code of conduct for the site and published a UniteMS Manifesto, which it sees as “a living document” that will “evolve with the development of new media technologies and the enactment of new laws and regulations”.
Unite MS is aimed at a global audience, with the exception of the US, UK and Ireland, and Merck Serono plans to supplement it with a number of local community sites, leading with launches in The Netherlands and Greece during the second quarter of this year.
The company has taken steps to ensure the main Unite MS website can only be accessed from the countries it is aimed at – visiting the site from the UK, for example, brings up a clear ‘this site is not accessible from your country’ message.
More problematic in this respect is its Twitter account, which can only note its self-imposed geographical limits and point US patients to the MS Voices Facebook page Merck’s US operations EMD Serono co-sponsors with Pfizer, while suggesting those in the UK and Ireland visit its local corporate website. Meanwhile, its YouTube Channel is awash with warnings and rules, but doesn’t yet have any video content.
Merck Serono will need to compete for attention against a number of well-established online MS resources, including a multiple sclerosis community from PatientsLikeMe which has nearly 23,000 registered members.
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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