Pharmaceutical Executive
How should drug companies and physicians interact? And if something is wrong with the relationship, who's to blame?
How should drug companies and physicians interact? And if something is wrong with the relationship, who's to blame?
Some of the best thinking I've seen on that important issue comes in the British Medical Journal, which devoted most of its May 31 issue to teasing out the complexities of how for-profit drug companies alter medicine's playing field. It's a project that could have fallen into pharma bashing-and some individual pieces come close. But it's saved by a willingness to look past the surface to figure out how the pharma-medical system really works and why.
"This relationship isn't a Manichean battle between good and evil," writes deputy editor Jane Smith, "but the entwinement of individuals from different backgrounds and value sets who get to know, and often to like each other and therefore want, as humans do, to reciprocate friendships and favors."
The contributors don't let pharma off the hook, but they generate some fascinating insights into how the world works-and how hard it is to fix:
The editors may have set out to critique pharma, but by refusing to settle for obvious answers they've begun to sketch the realities of an industry that mixes public and private interests in ever more complex ways. Anything that gives all the players a more realistic sense of what's wrong and how the pieces are connected serves us all.
Navigating Distrust: Pharma in the Age of Social Media
February 18th 2025Ian Baer, Founder and CEO of Sooth, discusses how the growing distrust in social media will impact industry marketing strategies and the relationships between pharmaceutical companies and the patients they aim to serve. He also explains dark social, how to combat misinformation, closing the trust gap, and more.