Sales & Marketing

Nearly 70 pharma execs, new media mavens, and even Joe Q. Public packed last week's FDA social media hearings to plead for some form of guidance on how to handle Tweets, blog comments, and off label discussions online.

Last year 90,000 pharma sales reps stopped in at hospitals and doctors' offices to woo doctors and dish out free samples. What would happen if they all went away? The answer is simple: everyone would be better off.

In today's "show me the money" marketplace, reimbursement strategy must innvolve more than seeking a good price based on ability to pay.

Executives should embrace design to discover new markets and find new ways to server customers.

Conversational marketing is a great resource for understanding and influencing physician–patient dialogues in the emerging healthcare environment.

Don't throw the sales force out with the bathwater. Accomplish more with fewer reps, less money and little effort. Impossible? Read on...

Sure, prescription information for Sanofi-Aventis's Uroxatral appears on the back of the tent card, but how can consumer?s see it if it's mounted to a pharmacy wall?

Google opened up a whole new era of social media when it released Sidewiki - a tool that allows anyone to comment on any Web site. Now pharma has a new battle to fight.

Sales forces can achieve compliance and excellence through individual behavioral fine-tuning and company-wide cultural adjustment.

Executives should embrace design to discover new markets and find new ways to server customers.

How a small competitor benefited from the use of interactive marketing.

Illegal online pharmacies are on the rise, brandjacking dozens of big name pharmaceuticals and netting almost $11 billion in sales this year alone. With consumers on the hunt for affordable meds, the trend is only going to get worse.

Big Pharma navigates a regulatory minefield to reach social media consumers. It's anything but 'business as usual.'

With the emergence of user-generated content, marketers have to keep up on the buzz around their brands and categories on the Web.

Close the loop between the pros and the consumers by integrating patient-physician communications into pharma brand planning.

The prescription for better pharma marketing: Gain understanding of your physician-customers by leveraging key analytical insights.

Initial survey and results suggest that health games and virtual worlds bear the potential to be "game changers" by improving education, provoking greater engagement, and engendering positive behavior to enhance health and wellness.

In an era of blurred channels and information clutter, it is critical for brand managers to develop a unified strategy that bridges the gaps between audiences.

The drug giant, last week, started tweeting about corporate initiatives, job openings, and news. Is Pfizer just jumping on the bandwagon, or is Twitter part of the company's social media strategy? Pharm Exec talks to Pfizer to find out more.

Dani Friedland examines what Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies are doing to succeed online.

Agency Insider Mark Chattaway infiltrates the world of online social media. His consensus: Advertising on social networks is iffy at best

What community organizing can teach pharma marketers about building a brand.

Thought leaders are a critical component of a pharmaceutical company?s professional marketing and medical strategies. But companies face a real challenge in creating, maintaining, and leveraging those relationships while safely navigating logistical issues and regulatory waters.

In an effort to learn as more about epilepsy sufferers, UCB will implement a social network that allows patients to communicate about their disease state and treatments. Think of it as one giant, online clinical trial.

What do you do when you are introducing a new drug in an already crowded category? Wyeth queried depression sufferers to find out what they want to see in a drug ad before launching its new DTC campaign for Pristiq.

The key to managing the pharma sales force is to know when the customer wants good customer service, and when the customer needs good self-service.

With staggering year-over-year growth, biosimilars are "the future of medicine." Marketers must position their companies for the inevitable changes.

A multi-phase implementation strategy can debunk the myth that social media won't work for pharma.

Cancer patients worry not only about their disease, but also the side effects of the drugs they take to treat it. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and biologics firm Amgen are partnering on a multi-prong program to get patients to pay attention to another, related, danger: chemo-related infections.

Two Democratic Congressman have brewed up new legislation to target pharma erectile dysfunction ads rather than going after advertisements with sexually suggestive material in general. Industry experts don't think they have a chance, but the bill could still be a pain for fans of Viva Viagra.