advertising
terrasig | December 3, 2007I was way behind on this story relative to the pharma blogosphere (John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog, Ed Silverman's Pharmalot, and the WSJ Health Blog), but Montel Williams has created a PR disaster for Partnership for Prescription Assistance of the industry group, PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America).
While promoting prescription assistance programs in Savannah on Friday, Williams blew up, as it were, at a Savannah Morning News high school intern. The intern, Courtney Scott, asked Williams, "Do you think pharmaceutical companies would be discouraged from research…
terrasig | November 15, 2007No..it's a false alarm. [***or not - see note added at end of post]
But I had to do a double-take last night when reading my e-mail notification of the new HealthCentral newsletter with the subject line:
Celebrate Alzheimer's Awareness Month; How risky is your sexual behavior?
For the grammar police out there, this is a great example of the difference in meaning of a semi-colon vs. a colon. However, given the size of the print on my screen and my pending need for bifocals, I couldn't tell the difference.
Anyway, I blame the editors of the e-mail release for alarming me.
Or maybe it was…
terrasig | October 24, 2007We wrote a few days ago on the disappointing discontinuation of Pfizer's Exubera, the first inhaled insulin product.
The always-insightful Dr Derek Lowe at In the Pipeline has an excellent commentary on this case, including his own take on the futility of putting lipstick on a pig:
1. Marketing isn't everything. The next time someone tells you about how drug companies can sell junk that people don't need through their powerful, money-laden sales force, spare a thought for Pfizer. The biggest drug company in the world, with the biggest sales force and the biggest cash reserves, couldn't move…
terrasig | September 22, 2007Just one last comment on the recently passed FDA legislation. I know that Terra Sig readers must be tiring of this issue already, but this aspect was too good to pass up. I started writing this post on a lark but the topic actually has serious public health implications.
John Mack at his Pharma Marketing Blog made the clever observation that while DTC restrictions were not in the Senate bill, a provision "prohibiting the FDA from restricting the sale of turtles less than 10.2 centimeters in diameter as a pet DID make it into the bill (Title VII - Domestic Pet Turtle Market Access; Section…
terrasig | September 22, 2007The Pump Handle's Liz Borowski put up a nice post summarizing the key points of the >400-page Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (H.R. 3580).
Missing from the bill were any further restrictions on pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising - according to Liz, some drug safety advocates were calling for a complete ban on DTC ads.
Since the FDA began permitting DTC advertising in 1997, the purpose of the ads has been viewed as less about patient education for underdiagnosed diseases (the original pitch) and more about getting patients to request specific…
revere | November 30, 2006Like most computer users I hate spam. But I've gradually gotten used to it. You can get used to anything, I was once told, even a stone in your shoe. Apparently I've gotten used to more than I thought. In a terrific piece in New York Press, Lindsay Beyerstein (aka Majikthise) calls our attention to scaffold spam in New York, the illegal use for advertising of the fabric sheathes on the construction scaffolding over building facades.
Vinyl construction wraps loom over sidewalks all over the city--from the towering blue Infiniti ad wrapped around a vacant lot in Soho to the new Equinox Fitness…
terrasig | November 27, 2006Direct-to-consumer drug advertising is an unusual art form, even for those who consider advertising to be art.
So why is Abe Lincoln in the kitchen with a talking beaver and a chessboard??
This imagery is the latest in the fight among prescription sleep-aids, brought to you in this case by Rozerem (ramelteon, Takeda).
John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog first took on this unusual ad campaign over the summer, but it was this morning's Wall Street Journal piece (subscription req'd, but I'll quote heavily) by Brian Steinberg that got my attention since he attempted to answer the question, "Why…