Sibyl Shalo

It's twelve o'clock-do you know where your reps are? According to research from Health Strategies Group, lunches provide one of the few opportunities in today's short-call environment for sit-down discussions with doctors. The average length of a lunch is 13 minutes, with an average of three physicians per meeting.

"The worst thing in the world that any of us could do would be for one part of our CME enterprise to interfere with either the professional or legal obligations of other parts of the enterprise," Murray Kopelow, chief executive of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), said in his opening remarks as he addressed an initially antagonistic-if not hostile-crowd on the second day of Pharmaceutical Executive's Second Annual Med Ed Forum last month in Philadelphia.

Blockbusters may not grow on trees, but sometimes they hide in desk drawers. At least that's how it was for one of pharma's most enduring brands--one which, near the end of its patent life, boasts 16 indications, four formulations, and three (recent) billion-dollar years in a row.

Point a finger at a map of the United States and try to find a state that's not competing to attract pharma and biotech business. It's nearly impossible. The story is the same in Europe and Asia. Around the world, countries, regions, and cities are trying to build their economies, and the life sciences are a key element in their plans.

Fifty years ago, Watson and Crick changed the world by discovering the structure and function of DNA. Twenty-five years ago, Biogen opened its doors as one of the world's first global biotechnology companies. Thirteen years ago, James Mullen joined the company as director of facilities engineering and seven years later was promoted to international vice-president. Four years after that, in June, 2000, Biogen appointed Mullen president and CEO, and-in an uncanny continuation of its half-life evolution-named him chairman of the board after James Vincent vacated that seat midway through 2002.

As a chemist, a vice-president, and just about everything in between, Sarah Harrison has spent 25 years delivering business excellence and predicting the impact of radical changes in the healthcare environment. Now she leads AstraZeneca in its own multi-faceted transformation.

From flacks and hacks to spin doctors and drug pushers, the cliches used to describe healthcare public relations professionals have fostered an image of PR that is, if not downright sleazy, at least suspect.

The unprecedented proliferation of new digital and traditional media vehicles is surpassed only by the continued growth of pharma marketing budgets and promotional spending. The combination of the two has generated an industry stir-among product managers, their agency partners, and publishers-about what constitutes the optimal media mix for today's pharma brands.

The world's steadily growing oncology market features key elements that are common to all competitors in the category: a highly respected sales forces, sophisticated and deeply involved patients and caregivers, clinically entrepreneurial physicians, and a dynamic global regulatory environment. Yet the uncharted territory of cancer breakthroughs demands that pharma marketers temper a strategy of progressive risk with caution.

In a complex future that promises some of the most revolutionary treatments ever developed, marketing plans cannot be built early enough.