Posts Tagged ‘Pharma’

HSilverman
Harold
Silverman

Top 5 Challenges of Biosimilars

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

syringe_glove_01The Food and Drug Administration is wrestling with how to best implement the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act. The agency is writing regulations that will set the exact rules for gaining biosimilar approval and has scheduled a meeting to obtain public input on the regulatory pathway that is being considered. The meeting is set for November 2-3 and will be held at FDA’s facility in Silver Spring, Maryland. The full meeting announcement can be found here. A live webcast of the 2-day event can be found here.

A quick look at some of the issues the FDA wants input on during the hearing shows how different biosimilars are from traditional generic regulation. Besides those discussed below, the FDA is seeking comment on a variety of marketing, technical and regulatory issues. The breadth and depth of all these questions speak to the complexities of the issues that are being dealt with. Given the uncertainty surrounding pending decisions and their impact on companies seeking to enter the biosimilar market, I believe the first U.S. biosimilar will not to be approved for at least two years.

(more…)

Posted in Biotechnology, Health Care Industry, Research
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Kaitlin Doody
Kaitlin
Doody

The Health Tweeder: Aggregating Health-Related Twitter Content

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Wondering what the Twitterverse’s most commonly discussed health categories are? Well, look no further because Pixels & Pills, a collaborative effort between two pharmaceutical marketing firms, has developed a free visualization tool to measure online conversations surrounding a variety of medical topics.

The Health Tweeder uses search terms, hashtags and handles pertaining to a given disease state to pool results into a feed of Twitter updates. The keywords for different health categories populate a vibrant lab of colorful petri dishes, which you can click on to reveal the most recent health-related Tweets. “Growing and shrinking based on the volume of content at any one time, each dish, and all of them combined, provide a dynamic view of dialogue in real time,” said Mike Myers, president of Palio, one of the collaborating firms. (more…)

Posted in Health 2.0, Technology, Tweets
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Spectrum

Health Reform: Special Delivery for Christmas

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Amidst dipping public support for health care reform that dropped from 45% of Americans saying the country would be better off with health reform passage down from 54% in November, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s most recent poll, the Senate passed the last two procedural measures needed yesterday and today to cut off debate and move its health reform package forward. With identical votes of 60-39, Senate leaders secured the necessary support to block GOP filibuster attempts, setting the stage for Christmas Eve passage of the bill, H.R. 3590. A compromise was reached between Senate Democrats and Republicans yesterday to schedule a vote for 8:00 AM tomorrow morning.

Of the 47 million Americans currently without health coverage, the Senate health reform package would provide coverage for 23 million uninsured. The House bill would cover 17 million. The price tags of the two chambers’ bills differ as well, with the House bill costing an estimated $1.052 trillion and the Senate legislation coming in at $871 billion. (more…)

Posted in Health Care Industry, Health Care Reform, Health Policy, Public Health
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MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

Weekly Digital News: Sidewiki, Game Changer for Pharma

Friday, November 13th, 2009

To recap, back in September, Google introduced a downloadable sidebar that allows a Mozilla Firefox, or Internet Explorer, user to leave their comments on any Web site – appropriately named “Sidewiki.” To add method to its madness, Google’s algorithm sorts these comments by relevance, not by date. In a nutshell, the Sidewiki has the potential to transform every Web site into a social media platform. It pairs the voice of the consumer with the voice of the brand, side by side in your browser… and, with an “opt-out” feature not yet available from Google, it is a company’s responsibility to determine the best possible way to approach the online “voices” coming from the metaphorical peanut gallery. (more…)

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Health 2.0, Public Health, Social Media
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kwalsh
Kevin
Walsh

Imagine the Power of a Proactive FDA

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

At the most recent Health2.0 conference in San Francisco we heard from Sanjay Koyani who is charged with web design and usability efforts at the FDA.  Prior to joining the FDA Sanjay was in similar roles at both the HHS and the National Cancer Institute.  The FDA has been making a lot of news recently for many things.  Among the most recent newsworthy events involving the FDA, which monitors both food and drug safety issues was a peanut butter recall.  Sanjay’s team did a remarkable job with the dissemination of information to consumers and professionals around the peanut butter recall and the affected products.

Sanjay’s team has become prolific users of Twitter and other social media tools to communicate directly with professionals and the general public.   This has resulted in remarkable results both in terms of the speed with which information is disseminated and that at which the public is educated on an issue.  Equally notable was the effort on the part of many citizens to aid in the dissemination of this information and to “pick up the torch’ on behalf of the FDA in informing and educating citizens.  Social media shows again how it can work at its best for another worthy goal. (more…)

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Health 2.0, Health Care Industry, Public Health, Social Media
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Spectrum

Global Issues for Pharma PR: New Media, Economy and Regulations

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

I attended the first of two days of the 5th Public Relations & Communications Summit at Pfizer in NYC. It was a jam-packed day with thought-provoking topics. Yesterday began with the keynote session featuring Sally Susman, SVP and Chief Communications Officer of Pfizer. She held the attention of the audience of 150 people when she spoke about authentic storytelling to convey messages. For example, don’t use a slick spokesperson, use someone genuine, such as a caregiver who knows firsthand how to care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

There was a lot of talk about social media. Based on a poll of the 150 attendees from pharma firms, agencies and media services, they responded that the greatest global issue pharma PR & Comm must overcome these days is new media, followed by the economy and regulatory.

Jim Edwards, pharma blogger, BNET was a panelist for the topic “Race for the Story.” Asked what’s the most challenging aspect of his job, Jim replied speed. There’s a huge pressure for him to get the story out there. To help him get the facts right, he emphasized that communicators should keep information in releases simple and orderly.  He did advise that if bloggers make a mistake in telling the story, let them know (with diplomacy and facts on hand, of course).

I am looking forward to day two when experts will share insights on topics, such as building an effective relationship between the pharma industry and FDA in our changing environment, and stretching your dollar when the need for communications is increasing and budgets are shrinking (a subject that relates to us all).

If you are at the Summit, be sure to use the #prsummit hash tag. There is a great dialogue happening right now!

Cherry Dumaual, Senior Vice President, New York

Posted in Health Care Industry, New Media, PR Industry
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