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Patient advocates recently surprised pharmacists and manufacturers by convincing an FDA advisory panel to recommend increased government scrutiny of its voluntary patient information policy. FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee met in July to review the status of a private sector initiative for distributing medication information to patients obtaining prescriptions in pharmacies.

Successful partnerships with third-party organizations such as patient and caregiver advocacy groups, professional associations, and thought leaders are powerful medicine for pharma companies.

Pharmaceutical companies and their marketing partners face a common dilemma: how to translate scientific progress into market success. Despite huge investments, R&D never seems to produce an adequate number of products with blockbuster potential.

A CenterWatch survey of 545 European clinical trial investigators named the best pharma companies to work with in clinical development.

In an organizational environment characterized by downsizing and zero-based budgeting, public relations no longer can convincingly argue that the function is justified without evidence of measurable results.

Shares in Danish company Novo Nordisk took a hit after it suspended trials for one of its main pipeline candidates, the dual-acting insulin sensitizer, ragaglitazar.

Spurred by concerns about rising drug expenditures, the Netherlands' government has introduced a list of "lifestyle" medicines that it intends to stop covering with its basic health insurance.

In a new twist on "direct mail campaigns," marketers at Eli Lilly have taken DTC to an unprecedented level. The company is currently under investigation by the Florida attorney general for allegedly mailing Prozac Weekly (fluoxetine) to a woman who did not have, or request, a prescription for the product.

Pharma companies invested a hefty $12 billion in promoting to physicians and consumers in 2001, according to Scott-Levin. But after the highs of 2000, spending in 2001 seemed stunted-a growth rate of 9 versus 13 percent.

The pharma industry has traditionally defined effective public relations by the number of positive press clips a campaign generates.

Sixteen years ago I began to edit Pharmaceutical Executive, a magazine unknown to me only a few months before. Today, I wonder how much I've learned in all the time since.

The number of pharmaceuticals derived from nature is staggering. Many medicine cabinet staples were first isolated from natural sources-penicillin from mold, quinine from the cinchona tree, digitalis (foxglove) for heart ailments, and the list goes on.

The Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle has been a painful warning that there is more to analyzing corporate performance than the smoke and mirrors that often pass for accounting and financial scrutiny. Indicators such as brand value, new product revenue, presence and percentage of business conducted in the US market, and sales growth provide more reliable criteria for companies' short and long-term prospects.

Investors have lost confidence in the market. Specifically, they have lost confidence in the information coming out of corporate America.

As healthcare struggles to reinvent itself, a confluence of major societal forces has irrevocably changed both the business world and the healthcare landscape.

Aventis announced plans to cut R&D costs by spinning out a stake in one of its research units. The private equity house Warburg Pincus will invest 60 million euro in ProSkelia, taking a 58 percent share.

If pharma companies want to be trusted sources of information in today's healthcare environment, they cannot afford to mislead anyone.

August 2002 CE.

Donal Geaney and Tom Lynch, chairman/CEO and vice-chairman, respectively, of the troubled Irish pharma company Elan, resigned following intense pressure from investors.

Search engine positioning (SEP) is a critical component of any online marketing plan. It is the art and science of increasing a website's visibility among major search engines and directories with a strategically defined set of key words.

Activist protests about access to, and the price of, AIDS medicines marked the International AIDS conference in Barcelona. But they failed to overshadow the promising results of research into new ways of attacking the virus.

Much has been said recently about how the blockbuster model can no longer sustain innovation and growth in the pharma industry. Hans-Joachim Lohrisch, CEO of German-based Altana Pharma AG, and George Cole, president of Altana Inc., its US subsidiary, beg to differ.

Just when pharma companies finally awake to the need for a good reputation, the stakes go vertical. The long-perceived and possibly illusory gap between shareholder behavior and public outrage suddenly disappears. And each company stands or falls on its revealed record.

When Pfizer gets in on a good thing, it isn't content to share. Two years ago the company initiated a semi-hostile takeover of Warner-Lambert to acquire full marketing rights to the hot-selling cholesterol treatment, Lipitor.

Successful pharmaceutical sales and marketing organizations operate much like healthy ecosystems: each interdependent group fills a critical need for the company's growth and survival. (See "Sales and Marketing Ecosystem," ) Yet many pharma com-panies can barely sustain past growth performance, let alone attain a higher level. If the trend continues unchecked, several pharma companies could falter.

Croatia's Pliva Pharmaceuticals is the first eastern European pharma company to make a US acquisition. Pliva paid $153 million for New Jersey-based Sobel Holdings,

Many industries today are looking to mobile and wireless solutions or handheld devices to improve business efficiencies, create more effective customer interactions, and deliver business value.

The debate about direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription medicines and internet information about therapeutic products is heating up again. Non-product-specific disease awareness campaigns are now allowed. In fact, Europeans were recently treated to retired Brazilian soccer star Pel¨sponsored by Pfizer) urging the afflicted to seek help for erectile dysfunction during World Cup commercial breaks .

The United Kingdom's much-maligned National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) could be in line for a shake-up if the recommendations of a House of Commons select committee go through.

In response to concerns about the low level of patient participation in clinical trials, the British Medical Association has launched an internet resource aimed at encouraging more patients to take part. Aimed at healthcare professionals, the site explains how different types of trials are conducted and spells out their ethical and best practices requirements.