Pharmaceutical Executive, Mar 1, 2006

Features

Pharma's Next Top Model: Slimmer Business Models

By Jerry Cacciotti , Bill Shew

The disease profiles pharma companies pursue should shape the business models that enable them to grow.

Holding Their Breath: Inhaled Insulin

By Ron Feemster

All of the companies with inhaled-insulin drugs must perform two-year safety studies. Not because their drugs show troubling data, but because Exubera has caused slight, temporary decreases in lung function.

Invisible Prescribers: What You Do and Don't Know About NPs and PAs

By Sharyn Lee

Before a pharmaceutical company dispatches a sales rep to a medical practice, the marketing department learns some basic facts about the physician: how many new prescriptions she's written, how many refills, and how much upside prescribing growth she might generate. What the rep usually doesn't know: who else—nurse practitioners and physician assistants—prescribes medications in the office, at a nearby clinic, or sometimes in a separate practice just down the hall.

Columns

Alternative Media: Masters of Their Domain

By Alana Klein

For years, educational institutions have enjoyed their own Internet domain: .edu. US governmental agencies have .gov, and non-profits have been able to set themselves apart from the crowd with .org in their e-mail and Web addresses. Thanks to changes made to the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) in 2001, subject-specific vertical segments have been able to flee the .com world for newly established domains, such as .travel, .jobs, .museum, and .info.

Backpage: Warning Letter

By Lou Morris

This letter concerns the FDA press release dated January 18, 2006, entitled "FDA Announces New Prescription Drug Information Format to Improve Patient Safety." The information contained is considered false and misleading, and lacking in fair balance.

Sales Management: Spending Under Scrutiny

By Jeff Brady

Given the high volume of rep interactions with healthcare professionals, companies must work toward achieving a fully integrated system that collects data from across the entire enterprise.

Marketing to Professionals: Under the Influence

By Susan Dorfman , Jerry Maynor

Marketers should target doctors who exhibit a high level of influence and connectivity among prescribers within and outside their specialities. Often, doctors' influence can extend to general practitioners, too.

Direct to Consumer: Q&A with Jill Balderson

By Alana Klein

We need to do more than just distribute information—we need to look at how consumers process, internalize, and act on that information. Health education is a process that is very personal and complex.

Washington Report

Washington Report: Labels and Liability

By Jill Wechsler

Pharmaceutical companies are worried that FDA's new labeling format will expose them to liability suits from individuals who suffer adverse events that are not highlighted, but "hidden" in the full prescribing information.

From the Editor

From the Editor: Fine Whines

By Patrick Clinton

The newspapers seem shocked to learn that scientific journals occasionally publish things that aren't true. Where have they been?

Special Reports

Market Research Roundtable

By Joanna Breitstein , Patrick Clinton

Understanding how drugs are bought and paid for has always been a bit complicated. People used to say that pharma had two customers—physicians and patients. Only one of them used the drug, and neither of them knew the price. My, how times have changed. Now the industry has so many customers, it needs to stop and get to know them all over again. And that's at a time when drugs worth tens of billions of dollars are going off patent. To map pharma's shifting landscape, Pharm Exec convened a group of top market researchers to discuss the issues shaping an evolving industry. Topics ranged far and wide, from the advent of Medicare Part D, to the new focus on adherence, the role of international markets, even the brave new world of marketing to seniors' children.

Company Profile

Genzyme: The Price of Success

By Sara Calabro

Genzyme has an impressive international record in regions with intact healthcare systems. but so far, algeria is one of very few countries where genzyme's drugs have gone from free to paid for. the company is basing a huge investment on faith.

Global Report

Global Report: Chemicals Legislation in Europe

By Sarah Houlton

Drugs are not directly addressed in Europe's new legislation for chemicals. But they'll be affected, because chemicals are used in drug manufacturing.

Thought Leader

Thought Leader: Q&A with Hugo Stephenson

By Joanna Breitstein

Companies don't have the budget, but are being forced to do more active surveillance.

Leadership

Finance: Promotional Productivity

By Blair Gibson

Lovenox still needs a defense strategy to hold share, but it requires less investment as a specialty product. Instead, Lovenox should throw cash over to Acomplia, the putative future star of the Sanofi-Aventis portfolio.

Legal

Legal: Hey, Good Lookin': Sex Discrimination in Hiring Reps

By James McDonald, Jr.

Drug manufacturers should have policies against sexual harassment of sales reps. Such a policy may also help counter charges that a company is implicitly encouraging its reps to use their sexuality as a sales tool.