Sales & Marketing

A study of doctors uncovers the hard facts behind what professional sales strategies work

For the sixth year in a row, Pharm Exec invites Professor Bill Trombetta of St. Joseph’s University to analyze the pharma industry's financial performance with a battery of business metrics, old and new. The highlights: Genentech pulls ahead of its longtime rival, Amgen. Forest delivers another strong performance, despite dropping revenue. Schering-Plough is building enterprise value. Biogen Idec racks up a stellar profit margin. And Merck? Well, Merck is back, baby. And the winner is…

Many see Vioxx and Avandia as clear signs that the drug safety system has failed. As soon as reports of these drugs' adverse events began to flood the media, consumers-and Congress-demanded to know: "Why didn't we know sooner?"

For pharma marketers, understanding the on-demand opportunity starts with recognizing that customers are, in many ways, ahead of the industry

Pharma surfaces on MySpace

Novartis' Zelnorm is back, but only through a restricted-access program.

Mel Sokotch has seen his share of consumer advertising, having worked in the business for nearly 30 years. He's done time at Foote Cone & Belding and Grey Advertising, and he's handled campaigns for Merck, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly. Most recently, Sokotch penned Shortcuts to the Obvious, a how-to book documenting common marketing mistakes and the ways in which agencies can better position ads. The book is geared toward general consumer advertising, but it includes numerous pharma examples. Pharm Exec caught up with Sokotch to learn more about what marketers can do to build better campaigns.

A new class of scales that can help capture drug effects-not necessarily disease impacts, as quality-of-life instruments currently do-will likely be needed to identify the meaning of the drug's benefits to patients

Brand essence is the result of a mixture of empirical facts, brand personality, functional benefits, and feelings that leads to the differentiating brand idea

Avandia's market share erosion was magnified further by the almost complete absence of new prescriptions being switched to Avandia from its competitors. In the weeks before the event, Avandia accounted for more than 20 percent of all switches by primary care physicians

Spending expected to increase mildly in the short term

In the wake of a high-profile death from counterfeit drugs, the industry reacts

Personalized health communication enables marketers to vary the messages they deliver, and it increases their ability to motivate different patients to act

Although pricey, serialization with RFID is expected to reduce logistical errors and address some aspects of supply chain security

Though it may sound paradoxical, the most effective deployment of a patient-feedback program is within a pharmaceutical brand's professional promotions

We'll see a more coordinated, worldwide platform not just for marketing, but for R&D and regulatory because of the harmonization that is slowly coming, primarily between Japan, Europe, and the United States

What's old and established is in, what's new-and once interpreted as"better"-is out

With gaming technology, pharmaceutical companies can display immersive 3-D animation that allows doctors to explore inside an interactive environment pertaining to a drug's method of action

Between the constant push for more government regulation of drug marketing and the conservative nature of the industry, the fast-paced world of pharmaceutical advertising doesn't seem too glamorous. But for one night every year, dozens of agencies and pharma companies take a walk down the red carpet to honor their peers at the annual PhAME Awards. Pharm Exec talked to some of the winners and industry insiders to take the current pulse of consumer advertising and find out what it takes to make an award-winning DTC ad.

Or: No news is good news--for everyone but us reporters

Blockbuster antidepressants linked to bone loss in seniors

Track down standout healthcare agencies using legal means. Your purpose: to assist prospective clients in choosing the right agency for their brands. Find out what makes agencies tick. See what's in their toolboxes. Go behind closed doors. Observe agencies' physical environment, note how they work. Take stock of the company's internal culture. Are the employees engaged, happy? Gather whatever information (i.e., facts, gossip, samples of work) and/or anything else that might be helpful to prospective clients. Take pictures of key principals at work and at play (if possible). Deconstruct the agency's proprietary approaches and strategic processes. Translate them into language an eighth-grader can understand.

Everyone knows someone who knows everything about restaurants in a given city. Not just the best restaurants, but the restaurants best suited for whatever the occasion.

OK, a parent company is a holding company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors. In other words, it maximizes shareholder value. Still, what does it mean for an agency and, in turn, a client to be under a big top? To find out AGENCY CONFIDENTIAL brazenly elbowed its way into the executive offices of two men who should know: Nick Colucci, recently named president and CEO of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group, one of the largest healthcare groups in the world; and Scott Cotherman, CEO of Corbett Accel Healthcare Group, a parent company for eight business units and a member of the Omnicom Group.

Women are everywhere. Healthcare advertising has to be one of the few businesses where so many women occupy top positions and actually make a living wage. OK, maybe they're not always at the top, top, but the glass ceiling is high and underneath is a mob of dynamic women (CEOs, presidents, creative directors, senior copywriters, etc.). We couldn't even begin to interview them all. Here are just a few.

Scott Cotherman has a thing for companies. He flat out loves them. Most of all, he loves making them into something bigger and better. He worked his magic on Chicago's Corbett Agency in the late '90s when, as COO, he transformed it from a regional agency into a global medical-communications company serving mega-brands. And in 2004, he was the brains behind the merging of the Corbett and Accel agencies that transformed them into the Corbett Accel Healthcare Group (a member of the Omnicom Group, the world's largest advertising holding company). Under his leadership, as CEO, the combined entity has since doubled in size. It now includes Accel Health, Corbett, Surge, Iris, and Kinect. Cotherman, who combines Midwestern warmth with CEO sophistication, describes himself as being passionate about organizations, transformational change, leadership development, and the future. AGENCY CONFIDENTIAL met with him recently over a lunch of chicken sandwiches, potato chips, and Diet Cokes. An engaging story-teller, he has..

It's easy to imagine a collective gasp from independent healthcare agencies everywhere last March on hearing the that news Dorland Global was bought by London-based Huntsworth. Dorland was one of the oldest independent healthcare agencies in the world. Is it right, then, to view the acquisition as significant, a sign perhaps of things to come? And what was it like for the Sweeneys to let go of their baby after all these years?

To harness consumerization to improve the industry's image and enhance the value of its products, pharma leaders need to focus on the "Four Cs": commitment, choice, collaboration, and customization

It was like the end of the arms race last November when Pfizer announced it was slashing its national sales force by 20 percent. Coolly downplayed as cost-cutting by new CEO Jeffrey Kindler, the stunning move was met by industry insiders, Wall Street analysts, and the media with one humongous collective sigh of relief. Big Pharma was seen as having grown dangerously addicted to the detailing game over the past decade, with the top firms plowing more and more of their blockbuster profits into trying to keep up with Pfizer's "flood the zone" strategy and with less and less to show for it.

With their memorable characters, sense of humor, and ability to balance creative with clinical information, the Rozerem ads have broken the traditional pharma ad template