Monday, January 22, 2007

Site prepares market for drug, educates patients on misdiagnosed disease

Site prepares market for drug, educates patients on misdiagnosed disease

Courtesy of ePharm5TM
Researching and reporting pharma business and marketing innovation
© 2006, HCPro, Inc.

For a subscription, please go to: http://www.epharmindepth.com

Biotech company Nutra Pharma is priming the market for a possible drug launch by sponsoring an educational Web site about the rare metabolic disorder Adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN). The site, www.AMNhelp.com, aims to help people recognize AMN because it is often misdiagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis. AMNhelp.com provides information about symptoms, diagnosis, treatment research, and links to national, regional, and international support groups. However, the site has no interactivity or graphics. Currently, there is no approved treatment for AMN, and Nutra Pharma's subsidiary, ReceptoPharm, received Ethics Committee approval in the U.K. last year to begin a Phase IIb human trial for a treatment.

 
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Increasing numbers of new social nets target young Hispanics

Courtesy of ePharm5TM
Researching and reporting pharma business and marketing innovation
© 2006, HCPro, Inc.

For a subscription, please go to: http://www.epharmindepth.com

There are an increasing number of social networking sites that target young Hispanics and many have content in both English and Spanish. One new site, www.LatinosConnected.com, launched in December and already counts Verizon and the U.S. Army as site advertisers, and its founder, former Yahoo! manager Veronica Alvarez, is in talks with other brands. According to Adweek, although MySpace is popular, it doesn't have elements that make it feel like a Latino brand, unlike other sites such as Batanga, elHood, MiGenti, and ZonaZoom. LatinosConnected, for example, is trying to send the message that it's "a community for Latinos by Latinos," Alvarez was quoted in Adweek, with elements such as a thread where members describe why they are proud to be a Latino.

 
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Health industry relies heavily on image ads, not sponsored links

Health industry relies heavily on image ads, not sponsored links

Courtesy of ePharm5TM
Researching and reporting pharma business and marketing innovation
© 2006, HCPro, Inc.

For a subscription, please go to: http://www.epharmindepth.com

Image-based online health ads garnered more impressions than sponsored links, according to November 2006 data from Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance. This makes sense, since image-based ads accounted for 79% of all ads for the health industry, compared to just 21% that were sponsored links, reports the Center for Media Research. This gulf between image ads and sponsored links was true across industries. There were more than 4 million impressions for image-based health ads, compared to a little more than 1 million impressions for sponsored links. Despite the millions of impressions, health industry advertising still accounts for a very small amount of all online ads. Sponsored links and imaged-based ads each accounted for only 2% advertising in their respective categories.

 
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Visitors flock to TV network Web sites, but not many watch episodes

Visitors flock to TV network Web sites, but not many watch episodes

Courtesy of ePharm5TM
Researching and reporting pharma business and marketing innovation
© 2006, HCPro, Inc.

For a subscription, please go to: http://www.epharmindepth.com

While the number of visitors to a TV network Web site may be high, that doesn't mean that those visitors are watching the full-episode streams of hit shows that are available. All four major networks offer episode streams and host advertising within them. Advertisers that sponsor a video stream may not be being seen by as many visitors as expected. ABC leads the other networks in the number of consumers watching full-episode streams, according to David Goetzl of MediaPost. In terms of Internet streams of prime-time episodes, ABC.com's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" drew 3.1 million unique users alone, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. NBC trails ABC in total unique visitors only slightly, with each averaging 9.5 million unique visitors a month for October through December, but NBC's numbers for viewers of online episodes are so minimal they don't register on the Nielsen//NetRatings scale, reports Goetzl. CBS and Fox sites lag in the amount of visits to their sites, with CBS averaging 5.2 million unique users and Fox averaging 2.8 million, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. However, CBS streaming shows such as "CSI" and "NCIS" run only second behind ABC in number of online episode viewers with 1.2 million unique users viewing full-episode streams in October.

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Doc networking site gives insight into top-of-mind issues

Doc networking site gives insight into top-of-mind issues

Courtesy of ePharm5TM
Researching and reporting pharma business and marketing innovation
© 2006, HCPro, Inc.

For a subscription, please go to: http://www.epharmindepth.com

Last month, a physician wrote on her blog that although she has started to discuss the new HPV vaccine with her young female patients, she has encountered insurance coverage barriers. That's one of the insights to the day-to-day physician concerns that pharma can find on Healtheva, a social networking site for healthcare professionals. Healtheva is free and unlike other sites, does not require physician credentials to register. The site, which launched last year, just added a suite of Web 2.0 technologies that aim to help physicians and researchers access the latest research news, connect with colleagues, coordinate clinical trials, and share best practices. In addition to member profiles, the site includes discussion forums, blogs, news, health headlines, and a section for members to keep notes about their clinical experiences.

http://www.healtheva.com/healthevapress11607.html

 
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FDA Proposal Could Ease Drug Marketers' Pain

FDA Proposal Could Ease Drug Marketers' Pain

by Christine Bittar, Monday, Jan 22, 2007 5:00 AM ET

DRUG MARKETERS COULD SEE A welcome end to warning letters, forced ad revamps and ad campaigns they have to pull after airing if Congress approves a proposal from the Food & Drug Administration that would result in speedier FDA pre-review of direct-to-consumer television ads for prescription drugs. 

"It would be a win-win," said Stu Klein, president of KPR, an Omnicom agency specializing in professional health care advertising.
Pharmaceutical companies ranging from Pfizer for its Viagra "devil horn" ads to Bayer/Schering-Plough for Levitra and Barr Pharmaceuticals for Seasonale are just a few of the marketers whose drug campaigns had to be tweaked or pulled in the recent past.

The FDA is proposing a 29% increase in the annual user fees paid by drug companies for new drug applications and for drug review and approval. The increase in fees would be in exchange for improved oversight of drug safety and to reduce approval times for new drugs or new uses.
In addition, the potential increase in user fees would also include something new: pre-review of direct-to-consumer (DTC) television ads on prescription drugs. The proposal comes just a little more than a month after the pharmaceutical industry reached a tentative agreement to pay the FDA fees to review ad campaigns in the first place. The purpose of these fees is a faster turnaround to review campaigns before they air.
If the new proposal goes through, drug makers will pay the FDA about $393 million in user fees in 2008, which is $98 million more than what will come in this year. Part of the extra money would be used to hire 82 new FDA staffers to review drugs and drug ads.

Drug companies aren't required by the FDA to get approval for direct-to-consumer drug ads before airing spots. Nonetheless, it had become common practice for drug companies to run the actual ads or concepts by DDMAC, which is the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications.
Last year, DDMAC's review task became even greater after the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of America adopted new guidelines--one of them being to submit TV ads to the FDA prior to hitting the airwaves.

If approved, the new arrangement could start as soon as October.
Drug marketers are generally pleased with a fee-for-ad-review setup. "This will ensure that the patient Web sites, print ads, TV ads and professional ads and all other information is consistent," says Gil Bashe, executive vice president and head of the healthcare group at Makovsky & Co, a public relations consultancy.

Currently, ad review can take about four months, says KPR's Klein--which is a long time, considering that it generally takes about a year to develop a concept and produce an ad, he says. In comparison, in 1998 when DTC advertising was new, the initial guidance from the FDA was for a quick 20-working-day review.
Creative concepts for ads have become more imaginative. But because of the time lag in getting the FDA to respond to ad wording, marketers sometimes go ahead, Bashe says.

"What happens is--often ads are put on the air before the FDA approves them, and if there's a problem thereafter, ads get pulled or corrected," Bashe says. "That's costly to the company, and it can also influence consumers because the first impression is often the lasting impression, so corrections or ad changes are not remembered.
"If ad reviews are accelerated, the quality of information will improve as will our nation's healthcare," he says.
A Democratic Congress however, may put a damper on the proposed plans. Certain industry critics view any new arrangements between the pharmaceutical industry and the agency as another indication of a relationship that's too close for comfort.

"We are opposed to any fees [for ad review]," says Sydney Wolff, director of the Washington-based advocacy group Public Citizen. "The [FDA] hiring more staff is a good idea, but it shouldn't be funded by the drug industry because there's too much potential for conflict," he says. In addition, Wolff says, "user fees for new drug applications aren't a good idea either," because they only encourage situations in which drugs get approved that perhaps shouldn't.

Christine Bittar can be reached at christine@mediapost.com   

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