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Cincinnati-based Queen City Physicians is charging pharmaceutical representatives $65 for 10 minutes of time with doctors. The group, which is composed of roughly 50 physicians in specialties ranging from internal medicine to pediatrics, is hoping the fees will help pay for a new computerized medical records system and also streamline the detailing process for reps and doctors.

Ah … the infamous work contact! As a pharmaceutical representative, and then as a district sales manager in the late '80s, I became intimately familiar with the practice of riding with your manager from both the passenger's and the driver's sides of the car.

Just three hours of advice and counseling by doctors and other healthcare professionals over two years can boost sedentary adults' physical fitness, according to a new study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Nurses can be powerful advocates.

Working effectively as a team.

A national survey of employers, released jointly by the Menlo Park, CA-based Kaiser Family Foundation and the Washington-based Health Research and Educational Trust, found that smaller employers (three to 199 employees) are significantly more likely than larger employers (200 or more employees) to support a person's right to sue a health plan, and are somewhat more likely to support the right to appeal a health plan's decision to an independent reviewer. Two-thirds (67%) of smaller employers express support for the right to sue a health plan, compared with 28% of larger employers. Eighty-six percent of smaller employers and 74% of larger employers support independent review. However, the survey found that support for both the right to sue and independent review decreases if employers are told that the cost of health insurance might increase as a result.

As policy makers struggle to devise a pharmacy benefit for Medicare patients, pressure mounts to impose spending limits on medications. In turn, consumer activists are challenging industry’s longtime claim that price controls will reduce investment in R&D for life-saving therapies.

In religion, belief comes first. In science, it comes last. And in politics, as in publishing, you can often find it for sale.

London-Schering and Biogen have both expressed anger over the leak of a National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) document suggesting that doctors stop prescribing beta-interferon to new multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

London-Following a review of its own drug discovery capabilities, GlaxoSmithKline practically gave away its majority stake in Affymax to a group of venture capitalists led by Patricof.

Geneva-The usually quiet International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA) leapt to Pfizer’s defense after Oxfam International criticized the US company about access to medicines in the developing world.

For the past 20 years, the blockbuster model has dominated the pharmaceutical industry. It has generated tremendous value for companies and shareholders and will likely continue to do so well into the future. That business design matched Big Pharma's expansive product development and marketing investments with the ample supply of opportunities for benefiting large patient populations and allowed an unusually large number of players to succeed in the high-stakes game. Not all companies can continue to win that game, however, so new fields of competition will be needed.

Berlin-The German healthcare system is ailing, and politicians are too timid and inefficient to do anything about it, according to the Verband Forschender Arzneimittelhersteller (VFA), Germany’s pharmaceutical industry trade association.

European Union-Both prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) industry sectors have welcomed the long-awaited proposals to overhaul EU pharma legislation.

If only two words could be used to describe Big Pharma's promotional spend trends during the past 12 months, they would be "it depends." Budgets are simply tools and the industry uses them as such: to determine just the right spend, on a certain type of product, during a particular phase of its life cycle.

The unprecedented proliferation of new digital and traditional media vehicles is surpassed only by the continued growth of pharma marketing budgets and promotional spending. The combination of the two has generated an industry stir-among product managers, their agency partners, and publishers-about what constitutes the optimal media mix for today's pharma brands.

President Bush has announced a new Medicare-endorsed prescription drug discount card program designed to immediately help Medicare beneficiaries lower their out-of-pocket drug costs.

According to a new report issued by London-based Datamonitor, sales forces are growing in size, but sales force return on investment is decreasing. The report reveals that physicians have less time to see sales representatives but are contacted by an increasing number as pharmaceutical sales forces expand. Therefore, reps are spending an increasing proportion of their time trying to gain access to physicians rather than actually detailing. As a result, the return on investment in the sales function is declining.

California and New York may be the nation's most populous states, but they and other big states, like Florida, New Jersey, Minnesota and Massachusetts, placed at or near the bottom in per capita prescription drug use, according to St. Louis-based pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts. The company measured per capita prescription drug use, across the nation, using a random sample of commercially insured members (age 18 to 64) of its pharmacy benefit plans.

The small incremental improvements to existing drugs that make up the majority of new drug approvals by the FDA each year provide important health benefits to patients.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson has announced a department-wide initiative to reduce regulatory burdens in healthcare and respond faster to the concerns of healthcare providers, state and local governments, and individual Americans who are affected by HHS rules.

More and more, physician meetings and events are becoming an integral part of pharmaceutical promotion, according to the Physician Meeting & Event Audit by Newtown, PA-based Scott-Levin.

Many of the communication and relationship-building skills that made Jan Hearn a great sales rep for nine years now make her a great corporate account manager. Promoted three years ago by Thousand Oaks, CA-based Amgen Inc., Hearn now works with corporate pharmacy staff, medical directors, CEOs, CFOs and COOs at five major integrated healthcare systems in three states to gain access and coverage for Amgen products. Although this new role required Hearn to undergo extensive training and master new skills, many challenges of relationship-building in the corporate environment aren't so different from those she faced as a rep.

According to Newtown, PA-based Scott-Levin, the movement toward larger sales forces that began in 1995 continues unabated despite consolidation within the pharmaceutical industry.

Scientists have developed a new tool that may help physicians predict, during the first several hours a stroke patient is in the hospital, the degree of recovery the patient will eventually experience. The tool uses three factors for the accurate prediction of stroke outcome: measurement of brain injury using magnetic resonance imaging, the patient's score on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, and the time in hours from the onset of symptoms until the MRI brain scan is performed.

In 2000, the number of independent pharmacies grew by more than 200, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association, Alexandria, VA. Based on NCPA's definition of an independent pharmacy - single-store independent pharmacies, independent chains, pharmacy franchises and pharmacist-owned supermarket pharmacies - independent pharmacies now number 24,841, or 45% of the nation's total market of 55,011 pharmacies.

Challenging one of medicine's long-standing beliefs, a team of scientists funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute on Aging has found the strongest evidence to date that human heart muscle cells regenerate after a heart attack. In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 344, no. 23), scientists from New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY report their success in finding large-scale replication of heart muscle cells in two regions of the heart, and in identifying several other key indicators of cell regeneration.

Four pharmaceutical companies, Kenilworth, NJ-based Schering-Plough Corp; The Procter and Gamble Co., Cincinnati; Eli Lilly and Co., Indianapolis; and Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL, were named to Fortune magazine's list of "50 Best Companies for Minorities." The list was published in the July 9 issue of the magazine.

It doesn't matter what you sell. Whether it's widgets or pharmaceuticals, we all face the same challenge - connecting with our customers and getting our message across.

The aim of coaching is to improve performance and minimize the difference between expectations and the results delivered. Coaching should develop each employee into a peak performer, or at least to his or her maximum potential. We know that growth will follow the proper amount of support, positive stimulation and personal initiative. Many coaching models instruct managers in proper coaching techniques and etiquette, and the successful ones can be easily assimilated. One way to ensure retention is to attach the coaching principles and vocabulary to activities reinforced by daily events.