Technology

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

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

You remember it well: that day back in the late 1990s, when your brand's Web site first went live. It looked great at the time, and you were so proud to have entered the Internet Age.

Once you get past the Disney allusion, it's easy to see the appeal of the idea that everyone in the world is linked by a short chain of social acquaintances. This "small-world phenomenon" was first advanced four decades ago by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, whose groundbreaking work includes the theory that there are only six links, or acquaintances, between any two randomly selected Americans. Popularized as "six degrees of separation," this notion has been transformed by the digital revolution into a buzzing, booming hyperreality beyond anything even the radical Milgram could have imagined.

Drug giant moves corporate, promotional communications online.

The push for new media is on. Pharma agencies are buzzing about social media tools such as blogs, podcasts, and interactive healthcare forums, but few firms really know how to make these online initiatives work.

Product sites need to offer consumers more than just a hard sell.

Are your static banner ads underperforming? Are you paying through the nose for the perfect ad position only to discover that your click-through rates are in the low single digits? Chances are that your tricked-out, flashy pharma ad is being ignored because people aren't proactively looking for the information that it's offering.

Pharma companies have been blasting out electronic newsletters to consumers since the advent of new media. But far too often, the content is vague and redundant, and instead of striking a responsive chord with potential readers, e-mail campaigns are more likely to prompt a strike of the delete key.

By using rich-media components and data-collection tools in online advertising campaigns, marketers can gather valuable customer information and stimulate brand awareness among their target audiences.

Mobile marketing is paperless and scalable, and allows pharma companies to build one-to-one relationships with customers.

80 percent of Web users search for health information online to make better health choices.

Documents from R&D, clinical affairs, regulatory, and sales and marketing can be in the millions. Throw electronic information into the mix, and the number of documents required for litigation increases exponentially.

Doctors like direct mail as long as the message is concise and to the point. The minute you ask the doctor to actually do something with the direct mail, that's when your effectiveness starts to go downhill.

After decades of disparate attempts to secure supply chains, pharma companies may finally be getting on the same page.

Clinical researchers cannot reliably use many of today's electronic health records because of the variability among collection systems.

Hospitals don't want straight-up advertising. If a branded program is going to be integrated into a health-education or health-services platform that's offered directly to a patient's room, it needs to have objective value.

To avoid the extra expense, many pharmaceutical companies abandon their Spanish sites when a new general-market campaign is launched.

New partnerships with nanobiotech firms are helping pharma companies overcome solubility problems and extend profitable product lifecycles.

Electronic continuing medical education is one area that is primed for podcasting penetration.

When people ask how health seekers look and act on the Web, there's no one answer: The online universe has become just as diverse as the rest of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the latest e-health statistics that, when taken together, paint a picture of customers who are beginning to find their feet-and new finesse-online.

Jeffrey Kindler holds two blue, diamond-shaped pills in the palm of his hand. One is authentic Viagra, manufactured by Pfizer. The other is counterfeit, maybe bought by an undercover Pfizer investigator, or intercepted when smugglers crossed a border, or perhaps seized in a raid on an illegal Chinese factory. Kindler challenges visitors and fellow employees to tell the difference between the two pills. Neither looks in any obvious way "fake," and no one among the journalists, corporate communications employees, or even security specialists gathered in Pfizer's global security operations center cares to hazard a guess.

Adaptive trials aren't just for propeller-heads anymore. They're one of the issues that need to be top-of-mind for the whole executive suite, as a driver of new processes and timelines, as a hot-spot on the budget, and as a battleground where public policy on drug safety and efficacy will be fought out.

I needed to eat. I even wanted to eat. Instead, I sat in front of my hospital lunch tray, unable to face up to a carton of red Jell-O. When you think of it, that's a situation most of us face (minus the Jell-O) every day in business.

Electronic data capture (EDC) is an emerging paradigm for gathering information in clinical trials. Ask anyone who has sorted through stacks of accumulated paper at the end of a study, and they'll say EDC is the wave of the future. But while many companies are on board with the technological benefits, enthusiasm wanes when it comes to actual implementation. Even some of EDC's biggest champions admit to its obstacles: "It's a disruptive technology that doesn't give immediate returns," says James Tiede, vice president of integrated data services, global clinical operations at Johnson & Johnson.

RFID is not ready for prime time anywhere. Certainly not in the US. There is no way RFID gives you end-to-end control of the product.

In a product recall, manufacturers would know which retailers and hospitals got bad bottles. Instead of clearing shelves everywhere, they could call specific customers and say, "Hey, we know you have five of these bottles. We want them back."

Scott Gottlieb called RFID implementation "disappointing." Now, FDA is moderating its view of RFID as a cure-all for the industry.

The Zelnorm study was conducted for $1,000 per patient, a fraction of the price of clinical trials, which can cost $10,000 per patient or more.

Online strategies aren't monolithic; each must meet the particular goals of the brand in question, and serve the knowledge needs of a specific disease state. That said, experts agree on many of the fundamentals-the 5 "I"s of Internet marketing: