PHARMA NEWS, MULTICHANNEL & CROSSCHANNEL MAKETING

Via ce blog « Le monde de la e-santé », accédez à mon mapping comportant à ce jour 510 références digitales concernant la e-santé. C’est un outil incontournable pour découvrir les sites web, applications mobiles, serious games, sites communautaires, web TV… réalisés par les divers acteurs de la santé au profit des professionnels de santé…

Appoints former Sainsbury's Argos executive Bertrand Bodson

Usages, équipements, sites internet, réseaux sociaux, formations en ligne… dans notre ère du tout numérique, où se situe le pharmacien ? Quels sont les avantages pour lui d’être connecté ? Sur quelle partie est-il en retard ? Petit tour d’horizon en chiffres ...

At next month’s Patient Summit Europe (19-20 October, London) find out how you can be more than a trusted partner – get yourself on the same side as your patients, and deliver sophisticated advocacy that fights their cause.

Patient advocacy groups and pharma companies have the same ultimate goal – better health outcomes – but managing these relationships needs care on both sides.

To give you an insight into the level of discussion you can expect at the summit, we spoke with:
- Nisith Kumar, Director, Global Patient Affairs, Pfizer
- Ann Kwong, Founder and CEO, TREK Therapeutics
- Lynn Bartnicki, Patient advocate, Living Beyond Breast Cancer

Read the article ‘Dancing to the same tune?’ here: https://goo.gl/hgVVms
Kind regards,
Cintia Hernandez Marco

Pharmaceutical companies are finding that the best—or at least safest—route to take with social media is to just ignore it. Given the a so-far unadapted FDA regulatory scheme for communication via things like Twitter and YouTube comments, rules for how drug companies can and can't interact with consumers online have remained prohibitively vague.

If a patient posts something online, like "this drug made my face turn into a giant boil," does it count as the sort of adverse event that pharmaceutical companies are required to report to the FDA? Historically, an adverse event is an adverse event, but the word-barf of social media makes this a murky proposition. If that's an adverse event, then what are the responsibilities of the drug manufacturer in tracking those events, which might pop up in any number of places online, from obscure message-boards to an @-tweet to, indeed, a YouTube comment?

It's nice to imagine a system, likely administered by the FDA, for mining comments like that, but in the meantime this is yet another online Wild West. Believe it or not, drug companies are in fact capable of playing it safe, especially when it comes to regulation, and so just about 50 percent of all pharmaceutical companies are choosing to sit social media out. This is according to a report published in Nature Biotechnology outlining a state of confusion that's hampering Big Pharma's marketing efforts, sure, but also repressing information that could prove to be critical in assessing the ongoing safety and efficacy of drugs, from clinical trials to the marketplace.

There are two broad categories of problems. One has to do with trials, which can drag out for extended periods of time in which supposedly blind trial subjects are free to post and read whatever they want online. And they do. In 2014, a trial for a drug designed to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was effectively nuked as subjects described their symptoms on the forums of PatientsLikeMe, revealing who had and who hadn't received the experimental drug. The study was then no longer blind, with 27 percent of trial participants active on the same site.

Health is a hyperactive topic within social media

The second category is what's known as "pharmacovigilance," a guiding force in pharmaceutical research and manufacturing since the 1961 thalidomide disaster. It is what it sounds like: Essentially, it's the science of adverse reactions. Some of this information is provided to drug companies through pharmacovigilance agreements with doctors and patients or "spontaneous" reports, while some comes from research, the media, and regulators themselves. Theoretically, adverse event reporting comes from anywhere, and in most countries, drug companies are required to submit this information to regulators.

It's a data quandary then. Health is a hyperactive topic within social media, as anyone that's spent much time on illness-related forums can attest, and so it should be a golden age of adverse event reporting. But how to actually do that and when to stop is an ugly science. How are social media comments to be weighed? What sources count as quality data? What's to keep an anti-vaccine brigade from trying to sink a safe, life saving drug?

"With social media, anybody can publicly complain in just 140 characters," the Nature report frets. "It's not yet clear under what circumstances companies are supposed to be monitoring these reports, so many of them are choosing the simplest option: ignore."

But ignorance really shouldn't be an option when it comes to adverse event monitoring, particularly if it's intentional ignorance. So what now? The FDA will be coming out with updated guidelines at some point TBD—it published some "vague and overbearing" preliminary guidance in 2014—but the issue really shouldn't be of what on social media drug companies are allowed to ignore so much as what the FDA can do to net as many possible social media comments about potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals. It could be a golden age, or it could be Big Pharma business as usual.

L’industrie du médicament est une filière prometteuse, tant les besoins de santé à l’échelle de la planète restent gigantesque

Visit Crain's Chicago Business for complete business news and analysis including healthcare, real estate, manufacturing, government, sports and more.

According to Fard Johnmar, founder and president of Enspektos, pharmaceutical executives are flooded with digital health opportunities and executives and leaders at these firms are having trouble triaging these innovations to determine which ones will meet key organizational, business and health goals.

Nevertheless, many drug and device companies are establishing internal innovation groups that are responsible for locating, developing and supporting the integration of digital health technologies into their operations. These companies are form an exclusive "Pharma Digital Health Accelerator Club."

This article features several examples of what the pharmaceutical industry is doing to implement disruptive digital innovations that help them manage clinical trials, improve their products, and support healthcare professionals and patients.

Contents (partial list):

• Opportunities & Obstacles for Pharma's Use of IoT
• Novo Nordisk Develops Remote Digital Glucose Monitoring Tools
• Top Pharma Companies Establish HCP Technology Standards
• Apple Tightens Health App Rules
• JNJ Innovation Aim: Develop Breakthrough Medical Devices
• Takeda Awards $35K to Digital Startup App for Depression
• JNJ Expands Membership in Digital Innovation Club
• Takeda Joins Pharma Digital Innovation Club
• Important Digital Health Incubators in Europe
• GSK & MIT Test Flumoji - An App That May Provide RWE
• Pfizer Shuns "Next Shiny Thing" When Developing mHealth Apps
• The Potential of Apple's ResearchKit in Clinical Trials
• Google & GSK Team Up to Launch "Bioelectronics Medicine"

Download the PDF here.

GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis made their mark at last night’s 2017 PM Society Digital Awards in London last night, each picking up two golds at the ceremony.

GSK’s My PAH mobile app by the EarthWorks and its ERS meeting by ebee Health were rewarded, as were Novartis’ COPD life is calling by Health Unlimited and the HACk – Healthcare Access Challenge by its Sandoz unit.

Bayer, MSD and Teva all picked up a gold each, for work that included multichannel work in hypogonadism and budget modelling in antifungal prophylaxis.

GSK - alongside partner agency The Earth Works - was also acknowledged for its work on the MyAsthmaApp, which received one of two new Inspiration Awards.

HealthiQ picked up the other Inspiration Award on offer for its ‘ground-breaking’ approach to the diagnosis of children with ultra-orphan metabolic disease MPS I.

La 28ème édition du Festival de la Communication Santé se déroulera les 24 & 25 novembre 2017 à Deauville. Un évènement dont le Club Digital Santé est partenaire. Chaque année depuis 28 ans, le Festival de la Communication Santé récompense les meilleures communications santé. Il a pour mission de mettre en lumière les communications numériques…

Husson: Over the past few years, I was lucky enough to travel to many different places: in most European countries, in the US, in Brazil, in the Middle East, in India, in Indonesia or very recently in Japan and Thailand. The digital revolution is happening all over the place and it is fascinating to see how it is changing people’s habits. In particular, mobile is a game changer in most economies and this will only accelerate. (..)

Significant economic, political, and technology trends will strain global digital strategies further by elevating the importance of local relevance. Over the next few years, we expect the following trends:

• Geopolitical shifts drive global fragmentation..
• Empowered consumers seek brands who reflect their local values (..)
• Innovative local competitors emerge (..)
• Mobile’s primacy forces a re-evaluation of local offline marketing(..)
• Rise of conversational interfaces reward local knowledge. (...)

To close this capability gap, marketers must evolve their cultural mindset, adapt their organization to share more responsibilities with local teams, implement an insights-driven approach to personalize experiences, and upgrade their global technology infrastructure.

Pour la 5ème édition de son Prix, la Fondation d’entreprise B. Braun lance le premier « Hack A Fond’ » au service des enfants malades.

The digital health start-ups selected for funding via Bayer’s Grants4Apps Accelerator programme have been revealed.

The Grants4Apps programme has been running since 2014, making it one of pharma’s most well-established digital health funds.

This year the scheme will foster four start-ups focused on medical adherence, endometriosis, atrial fibrillation, deep vein thrombosis, and ultrasound diagnostics by providing mentoring and 50,000 Euros in funding.

Those selected include London-based firm aparito which combines wearable technology, an app and a dashboard for professionals to transform data capture during clinical trials.

Aparito’s tech has been used in rare disease and oncological trials in the past.

Many pharmaceutical companies have been cautious about their social media presence. However, that’s no surprise given the advertising restrictions and potential minefields of discussing prescription medicine in an uncontrolled environment. This report looks at how 16 companies have embraced social media and the trends that have emerged in the industry over the last five years.

Due to the restrictions imposed upon the industry by the FDA, we found that pharmaceutical companies have split their social media presence into four independent silos (see image).

On Facebook, pharmaceutical companies saw growth from both Corporate pages and Career pages. The high growth of the Careers pages is perhaps an indicator of the low number of total Fans these pages have. As for the Corporate pages, the high growth rate suggests that this silo was a very important channel for pharma brands in 2016.

On Twitter, pharmaceutical companies struggled to increase Follower growth throughout 2016. The Branded portals’ handles were the biggest drivers of Follower growth mostly due to the comparatively low number of Followers. Just like on Facebook, the OTC Brand handles didn’t register any significant growth. This could be due to companies refocusing their efforts in other silos.

Further Reading:

• “PharmaGuy's Social Media Compendium ”; http://bit.ly/pgsoccat

Plutôt qu’une simple numérisation de leur offre, les entreprises doivent entamer un processus de transformation globale basé sur l’expérience client, une révision de leurs process internes et leurs collaborateurs.

Dans un monde secoué par la prolifération des nouvelles technologies (intelligence artificielle, Internet des objets, blockchain, réalité virtuelle, cloud…), par les Gafa (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) et leurs cousins les Natu (Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, Uber), par les start-up et leurs licornes, les entreprises doivent se réinventer et engager une transformation profonde. Beaucoup d’entre elles en ont conscience mais elles sont encore trop nombreuses, soit à se tromper sur le contour et l’ampleur de cette problématique et de ses enjeux, soit à faire un amalgame entre transformation digitale et innovation.

Les entreprises doivent ainsi se méfier d’une transformation digitale restreinte à la seule numérisation de l’offre, en lui préférant une transformation globale. La différence est importante et se fourvoyer dans la formulation de la problématique leur fera manquer le défi du digital et risquer d’être « disrupté ». Il ne faut pas non plus confondre la finalité et les moyens. La transformation digitale ne se réduit pas à développer une application mobile, à produire du contenu sur les réseaux sociaux et à embaucher un chief digital officer (CDO). Pour mener à bien une transformation globale, il est souhaitable de travailler sur trois axes en parallèle.

Lancé en 2016, l’accélérateur de startups « santé, bien-être et prévention » des Laboratoires Expanscience ouvre son deuxième appel à candidatures.

At biopharmaceutical companies across America, we stand for hope, treatments and cures that make a difference in the lives of millions of patients.

A new study of pharmaceutical marketing teams found that the most popular social media forum groups plan to use in the next one to two years is Facebook (73%), according to data published by business intelligence firm Cutting Edge Information.

Data found in the study, Pharmaceutical Marketing: Reevaluate Digital Trends and Metrics for Social Media and Mobile Success, which was published less than a month ago, revealed that YouTube (64%) and LinkedIn (55%) are also common for surveyed life science marketing teams, with Twitter (45%) at a more distant fourth.

Not as popular, but still commonly used social networking sites include Instagram and Tumblr, with 18% and 9% of pharmaceutical marketing teams utilizing them, respectively. Additional data from the study show that no surveyed pharmaceutical and medical device companies report using Pinterest, Vine, Flickr and Reddit.

"New technology offers many opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry," said Natalie DeMasi, research team leader at Cutting Edge Information. "As a result, social media and mobile platforms are becoming more and more a part of teams' digital strategies."

But some consultants say Tumblr deserves more respect from pharma. Read “Pharma Tumbles for Tumblr. ‘It's Not Your Grandfather's Social Media!’"

Most pharma companies use social media channels to broadcast content rather than converse with their audience. Typically, this follows two themes; broadcasting corporate news including regulatory approvals, appointments and disease awareness, and releasing other notable items, such as the latest data from congresses or stats on epidemiology.

Unlike many other industries, there is little attempt to use social media as a platform for conversation. This is primarily a result of the regulatory challenges faced by the industry.

There is still little in the way of true innovation in digital marketing across pharma. For most companies, having an e-detail, brand website and corporate twitter account ticks the digital boxes. Digital remains an afterthought of the marketing plan after the exhibition stands, symposia and patient leaflets have been ordered.

Fear of the known

The risk of not adhering to industry codes of practice means there is an inherent fear of digital channels and, in particular, social media. With most companies requiring approval of all external communications it is very difficult for pharma to converse over social media and certainly not with the immediacy that users demand.

Trust issues

There are a couple of key issues that reduce the impact pharma can have over digital channels. Firstly, social media users are used to engaging in conversation and debate. Pharma’s inability to engage in this way means their social media presence is far less engaging for patients and doctors than other content providers.

Secondly, there remains a distrust of industry. Deloittes’s report on pharma's adoption of social media* highlights the challenge, with 75% of doctors surveyed indicating a lack of trust in pharma.

Pharma companies should consider partnering with third parties who are trusted by their target audience. Partnering with professional bodies or third party networks offers great opportunities for industry to provide access to clinical data and insights which their partners are not able to deliver on their own.

HCP engagement

The rise in popularity of platforms such as doctors.net.uk, Medscape, Epocrates and Sermo indicate that like any consumer, HCPs are using digital platforms to engage with the content they want. In addition, HCPs are increasingly using digital platforms as a way of receiving medical education, whether via webinars, or new platforms like twitter’s Periscope. Tools like Skype are also being used increasingly by HCPs in their day-to-day working, including conducting MDT meetings with remote colleagues or even patient consultations.

As the traditional access to HCPs continues to increase in difficulty, perhaps a mix of online and face-to-face conversations will enable pharma reps to be more efficient.

Where the journey begins

Listening is key to developing digital solutions that meet the needs of HCPs and patients. Social listening, for example, by searching the web to see what’s being said about your company or products is a great way to gather insight and there are many free tools out there to get you started, such as Google Alerts.

Speaking to HCPs and patients and asking them to describe the patient journey and mapping out the challenges and gains at each point helps identify where solutions are needed. Co-create solutions with HCPs and patients rather than stopping at co-design. Co-creation means involvement at each step of the process as you design, prototype, test and refine solutions. Start small, get something out there and learn as you go.

The FDA, in an effort to bring promising new therapies to patients as quickly as possible, has introduced a spate of shortcuts to speed up the approval process. Those programs are working as intended, new research finds, but drug companies are often loath to fulfill their obligations.

The big idea behind the FDA’s accelerated drug approval program is that regulators will OK a promising drug based on clues that it will improve patient lives, so long as pharma companies later carry out larger trials to confirm those hints of efficacy. But looking at four years of data, a team of researchers found that only 50 percent of those trials actually took place within three years of approval.

Furthermore, 44 percent of such trials were not the placebo-controlled variety considered to be the gold standard but rather relied on the same surrogate measures used to win a quick approval, leaving each drug’s true value unclear. This was particularly striking for cancer drugs, accounting for 80 percent of studied approvals, which were cleared based on how well they shrank tumors, not how long they kept patients alive.

Further Reading:

• “GAO Report: FDA Expedites Drug Approvals, But Its Postapproval Oversight Stinks!”; http://sco.lt/89j3Zp
• "FDA is Lax in Enforcing Law Regarding Prescription Drug Postmarketing Studies"; http://bit.ly/1PoqAsY

Good news—the pharmaceutical industry is finally catching on to the social side of social media. Just a decade or so after Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter gave everyone the opportunity to share their own stories, pharma businesses are actually starting to listen.

Of course, there is still a broad spectrum of social media capabilities within the industry, from companies that are all in on the social scene to those who still haven’t managed to set up a basic account. Even within businesses, skills and usage can vary greatly between countries, therapeutic areas, or corporate functions such as HR and commercial.

The vast majority of pharma companies also still use social media as just another broadcast channel—a cheap alternative to direct mail. But the green shoots of sociability are starting to show through.

Less is more

One recent shining example is AstraZeneca’s Twitter strategy at June’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2017 meeting in Chicago. Ahead of the meeting, the company released a statement saying that it would be tweeting less and engaging more with retweets and comments.

The business was reacting to concerns expressed at 2016’s ASCO meeting, when some attendees worried that vital social media conversations around the event were getting lost among louder industry voices. The worry was that paid promotions were threatening to crowd out valuable scientific conversations.

AstraZeneca’s response was to publish a set of commitments to be "Being a Better Social Media Citizen." In a five-point pledge (see slide below), the company promised to preserve the social media space around the conference and allow the oncology community to “learn, discuss, and share the science that excites them at ASCO 2017.”

Click to enlargeKey to this was “talking less and listening more,” meaning a significant reduction in tweets sent. The flip side of that was “elevating important voices,” sharing tweets sent by researchers, patient organizations, doctors, and patients.

AstraZeneca also drew back from frivolous content like quizzes or fun facts to “be sensitive” and acknowledge that oncology is a serious business. And the  drugmaker stopped paid promotion of tweets for the duration of the meeting to “respect the organic conversation” taking place on Twitter among ASCO attendees and the broader medical community.

Finally, the company’s social media team committed to focus on explaining its own science in formats that were easy to digest and understand and “make complex science accessible.”

Contributing to the conversation

AstraZeneca’s “less is more” strategy appears to have contributed to a better online experience at ASCO 2017.

More than half of the 200-plus respondents to a Twitter poll by ASCO member Dr. Mike Thompson, with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, thought the 2017 meeting had a better “signal-to-noise ratio” than the previous year’s meeting.

Dr. Paul Tunnah, CEO of healthcare engagement agency Pharmaphorum Connect, was encouraged that AstraZeneca had carried through on its promises. “This is a good example of progressive social media,” he says. “They received positive feedback from the medical audience and stood out as being engaging rather than broadcasting.”

Annie Sullivan, director of corporate social media, AstraZeneca, says that while it approaches every congress or campaign with a fresh lens, being a “good citizen” is now central to the company’s social media strategy.

She explains that the business wants to deliver content that has a value through its social media channels, making its science accessible, highlighting important professional voices and sharing patient perspectives. “We are focused on remaining relevant to the ever-changing social media landscape,” says Sullivan. 

Crafting campaigns

The issue of relevancy features in Tunnah’s 2017 formula for the ideal social media campaign: “Integrated, relevant, and long-term.”

Being relevant, according to Tunnah, means that campaigns need to provide information that is useful to the target audience.  He says corporate objectives and messaging can be encapsulated in valuable information, but that marketers must avoid “corporate-speak.”

Being integrated requires social media linking to other digital and non-digital content that takes the customer on a clear journey to learn more about the company or a specific therapeutic franchise. And to be long-term, Tunnah says that pharma needs to be ever-present on social media, not just when it wants something.

Long-term commitment and social media marketing don’t always sit well together. Corporate concerns over ROI that is not always easy to prove and the frequent pivots of the social platforms conspire to shorten campaign time frames. But Tunnah advises the long view.

“Short-term campaigns will not deliver results without significant paid promotion, which may not deliver relevant audience,” he explains. “Trust takes time and the authenticity that being there more persistently provides is very powerful in building better customer relationships.”

Making connections

According to Jordan Deatherage, senior director, social media, at Intouch Solutions, the ideal social media campaign also needs to make a connection, regardless of the platforms or the technology being used.

She advocates a consistent and connected customer experience, not a mismatch of information or user experience. “Each messaging point of contact should be intentional and function in an expected way,” says Deatherage.

She believes it is possible for companies to be social without building a branded presence on specific platforms, so long as they understand that social media is an important part of people’s day-to-day Sidebar: Reaching Across Disease Areas (click to enlarge)communication.

“Information on the Internet is social if it’s shareable,” says Deatherage. “By providing valuable content and enabling visitors to cleanly share it, companies can implement a compliant, inherently social experience.”

In this way, companies can take on social media without setting up an owned brand presence like a Facebook page. But that doesn’t mean there is no value in developing an owned social presence.

Deatherage points to the work Intouch has done with Teva to develop its Lift MS Facebook page and blog. The award-winning Facebook page has almost 320,000 followers and hosts patient resources, discussions, and supporting videos and photos. “The Lift MS Facebook page and blog have contributed in a relevant way to this community in a very crowded category,” says Deatherage.

Teva previously had success with the “You Don’t Know Jack About MS” YouTube channel fronted by multiple sclerosis sufferer Jack Osborne. The channel gained 11,000 subscribers and the most popular of the 16 episodes clocked up almost half-a-million views.

“The two campaigns aren’t linked, but they are both a testament to a client that understands the impact of social media, especially in a very crowded disease state,” says Deatherage.