Digital Pharma news

To develop new drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is thinking about gathering user data through iPhone apps.

Novartis has released a new Apple Watch and Android Wear app geared at helping visually-impaired people navigate their environment. The app is one of two Via Opta apps that have been available on the iPhone since August 2014, but a new upgrade adds additional features and brings Via Opta Nav onto a wearable for more convenient navigation.

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The app will be run on Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini phones, given to participants just for the study, and stripped of most other functionality. This will help to facilitate smartphone use in the elderly patient population. Patients will do six 30-second active tests a day on the app, as well as passive monitoring. The six tests consist of a voice test (saying “aaah” for as long as possible), a balance test (standing still), a gait test (walking 20 yards and turning around), a dexterity test (tapping buttons on the touch screen), a rest tremor test (holding the smartphone and counting down from 100), and a postural tremor test (the same as the rest test, but with the hand outstretched).

Investigators will keep watch on a dashboard to make sure each patient does their tests, and will be able to reach out to patients who neglect to do the active tests. The data collected will help investigators gauge the effectiveness of the treatment.

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If pharmaceutical and medical device companies are on the fence about how to incorporate social media into their digital marketing campaigns, they better get moving. The reason is simple: That’s where patients and consumers are.

The first place that most people turn to for health information is the Internet. Increasingly, the main way that people access the Internet is via a smart, mobile device. In a post at Compliance Monitor, Cadient’s Gene Y. Miller notes that research from the Pew Research Center shows that 52 percent of smartphone owners have used their phones to look up health or medical information; 19 percent have downloaded an app. “Pharmaceutical marketers,” Miller writes, “need to engage with their audience on their terms.”

In the fall of 2014, the FDA released draft guidelines covering how companies can discuss their products on social media. Those preliminary guidelines call on companies to state both the risks and benefits of their products, a tall order considering that Twitter’s interface limits messaging to bite-sized snippets of information of no more than 140 characters.

Striking a balance between conveying an effective marketing message that also includes appropriate safety and risk disclosures can be difficult. But Miller says that with some effort, pharma marketers can do both.

Say much, use little space. In order to convey both risk and benefit, Miller suggests economizing space by using abbreviation, punctuation marks, and symbols, such as “&.”Primary and secondary links. Primary links should be a site that provides more complete information about risk. A secondary link could also be included for additional information.Consider the platform. Twitter is not the right forum for every pharma marketing message. If the proper risk/benefit balance cannot be achieved in the constraints of Twitter, or any other social media forum, Miller says that perhaps that platform should not be used for that particular message.Composing an FDA-approved Tweet. In a nutshell, keep it short and sweet. Include the benefit. Communicate the risk. Use the full FDA-approved product name.

Technology changes quickly and regulation moves slowly. The FDA will likely have more to say on the matter and the agency’s guidelines can shift and change. But Miller says that’s no reason to wait. Internet users generate more than 500 million Tweets every day, according to some estimates. “Short-form messaging and advertising is going to remain a major fixture of the media landscape for the foreseeable future,” he says.

Start listening to chatter on social media and you'll discover that Pepto-Bismol is commonly used for face masks, allergy OTC meds' side effects are disruptive, and knitters get lots of headaches.

Infegy's recent study divining social insights for pharma also found some interesting prescription drug gems as well. For instance, cancer patients talk more about marijuana than Zofran for nausea relief. And along with insulin shots, diabetes patients also use almonds and nuts, apple cider vinegar and high fiber to manage their disease.

Rion Martin, Infegy's marketing director, said social listening is often an untapped resource for pharma, which even some drugmakers admit. Initial feedback on the study included several companies noting they had never thought of using social media that way, he said. The other significant feedback centered on regulations, particularly adverse events and the question of whether findings via social listening would have to be reported. (The answer is currently no.)

"Today the major value is insight and analysis because of the problem of (vague) regulations," he said. "We advise people to use social media more as a point of research than a point of engagement."

But what to do with all those insights? That depends. In the case of the discovery of knitters getting headaches, the digital ad agency for Tylenol, which uncovered the new target group, caused the headache medicine to shift marketing and SEO strategies, resulting in an increase in visits to its website, according to the Infegy report.

Other findings, like the marijuana chatter, diabetes dietary aids or the side effects of allergy medicine, can be used to look at the impact of side effects, address what's working and what's not working in treatment management or tailor messaging to address specific pain points.