When I hear public uproar over the price of prescription drugs, my initial urge is to defend the pharmaceutical companies. The average R&D cost for a new molecular entity (NME) to get from bench to bedside is over $800 million* (cue the Dr. Evil music). It does not help that the FDA charges almost $2 million just to submit a new drug application (NDA) for review. Drug discovery is a pricey business and ...
I’m in the habit of scanning the news throughout the day and bookmarking articles that I don’t have time to read at that moment. Unfortunately, this leads to a bookmarks folder brimming with articles that I may never get to (516 and counting, if you must know). But the long Memorial Day weekend allowed me to make a dent, and I thought I’d share a few of the highlights: NPR recently reported ...
Whether it’s for a potential new client or an existing one, we, as an industry, often try to achieve their business objectives with a laundry list of our products and solutions, or our “capabilities.” We have all seen it and most of us (including me) are guilty of doing this from time to time. Then we leave it up to the client to determine whether or not our solutions and functional capabilities line up with ...
So many have written on this topic. I recently read (and highly recommend) a book titled the same, as well as an article in Forbes about the lack of story in PR. I have to say this is true. We continue to forget that there needs to be a story behind our products, services and brands. In fact, without a story, you do not have a brand. But why do we continue to ...
In advertising, we’re all aware that change is constant. We do our best to take notice and move forward. I’ve recently noticed a change in how agencies attempt to leverage their skills and even expand upon their core competencies—without legitimate leverage or the ability to expand. Agencies used to tout their expertise in specific areas like advertising, promotions, medical education and public relations. Nowadays, agencies identify themselves as being communications experts—implying that they have expertise throughout ...
Imagine that you woke up one morning, turned on your local news and heard the following uttered from the newsreader: “a cure for cancer has been found.” Quickly, you turn up the volume only to hear that the news gets even better. This cure works on all known cancers and only requires that the patient take a single pill, just once. Sounds pretty simple: take your medicine and you regain control of your life. However, no ...
Well, I have to say one of the biggest recent lifts to my ego was our companies’ (Brandkarma and Core-Create) nominations for two Manny Awards. And while some may be jaded to all the fanfare and hoopla (including myself), I recognize how darn good it felt to receive that first notification. And if I could feel good after so many years of the jade build, just think how others ...
As healthcare marketers, we attempt to gain insight into the minds of our biggest customer—the physician. Unlike consumers, the professional audience chooses to participate actively in healthcare issues and will continue to provide key insights into a successful brand. Knowing this, we tend to invest much of our campaigns in market research. But I’m curious: do we really utilize what they say? Do we challenge ourselves to challenge our clients to listen to our audience? Let’s ...
Now this is our idea of pharma: earlier this winter, a pharmacy by superstar designer Karim Rashid opened in Belgrade, Serbia, and it’s a far cry from your local CVS. Medicine’s journey through the body served as inspiration for the project, according to Rashid. I think Oaza Zdravlja pharmacy would inspire me to forget my sniffles for a few minutes when ...
I’m tired of talking about social media as if it is the “next thing” or the latest fad. Social media, or the premise, has been with us as long as we have had verbal communication. It is human nature to recommend things, discuss problems, complain, and brag. So I can’t understand why there is so much reluctance to become active in the conversation, even if you are a pharma company. The excuse that the “rules” ...
