What [a] business thinks it produces is not of the first importance," Peter Drucker famously wrote. "What the customer thinks he is buying, what he considers 'value,' is decisive."  The crucial word in there, of course, is 

It gets right at the elusive core of business, the place where consumers look at products and transmute them into something new. Your pill to lower blood pressure? The customer could look at it and think he's buying extra years of life, or he could think he's buying a paid-up membership in the ranks of the sick. The facts, as important as they are to the industry, doctors, and FDA, may not matter       much at all in comparison with what's in the patient's imagination. 

That disconnect at the heart of the transaction is a fact of life. But as the events of recent months have vividly shown us, it's a bad thing when businesspeople get too comfortable with the idea that customers are getting something other than what they think they're getting. In recent years, millions of mortgage applicants thought they were buying a home, or perhaps a foolproof investment, when they were in fact buying a shot at bankruptcy. Financial institutions that thought they were buying revenue streams in fact...well, you get the point. 

Healthcare is rife with the same kind of problems. Patients who think they are getting a vital medical test that will contribute to their health are, in fact, sometimes simply paying to render their physician a little safer from a medical malpractice suit—or in the most egregious cases to boost his or her revenue.  

The mismatch isn't always malicious. Many in the pharmaceutical industry take pride in the fact that they sell products that cure or control diseases and enhance health. That's true—but it doesn't necessarily follow that when you sell a medication, you're selling better health. The realities of differential response to drugs and poor patient adherence and compliance mean that many prescriptions ultimately accomplish little or nothing.  

So how do we ensure a better match between what customers think they're buying and what they're really getting? In the world of pharma, we've tried stricter and stricter regulation—and if anything, it has only led to greater dissatisfaction. The current focus on paying for outcomes looks like a step in the right direction. But for my own part, I have less faith in regulation and incentives than I do in the passion and persistence of individuals. We need people at all levels of pharmaceutical and healthcare companies to insist on getting closer to the ideal of being in the business of providing not just products, but health.  

We're not supposed to believe in that sort of thing, of course. We're supposed to think like economists, and structure systems that deliver good results by relying on nothing more than the greed of individuals. That can kind of work, as we've seen. But it can fail. In this long, hard year, I look at the news and think of the characters of the people I know and work with.  

This is my final column as editor in chief of 

. By the time you read this I will have taken on the job of marketing director for the Health and Life Sciences practice of Oliver Wyman. My deepest thanks to the splendid 

 staff, publisher Jay Berfas, and to the hundreds of readers and others who have offered me guidance, criticism, and astonishingly generous support in my time here. 

Articles

From the Editor

In the long run, pharma wants to sell health, not just drugs.

What to Buy

 creative thinker I know of in the world of business is Jim Collins, the author of several books on successful management, including 

. Collins, who was profiled this year by 

, budgets precisely 53 percent of his time for creative pursuits, including writing and research. The rest is split between teaching (28 percent) and other activities (19 percent). He even carries a stopwatch so he doesn't stray.   

That may sound over-the-top. But behind such meticulous scheduling is an insight that eludes too many executives: Collins realizes that creative time is critical to success, and he's taken steps to ensure that he actually spends that time. 

It's not easy to do. Creative progress often comes in spurts, and it takes a leap of faith to stick to the program when results seem lacking. But that's what Collins does, routinely turning down lucrative speaking and consulting opportunities to guarantee himself time to think. In so doing, he is banking on a payoff that most of us see as a chance event. 

In fact, research on the creative process suggests that results are more a matter of good habits than good luck. Karl Ulrich, chair of the Operations and Information Management program at the Wharton School, says it takes more thought and reflection to generate and implement new ideas than most people expect. 

"The conventional view is that innovation is a purely creative process," Ulrich said in an article posted on the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs Web site. "That's why you get terms like 'spark of creativity' and book titles like 

In fact, the spark is just the beginning. What makes the idea great is the fine-tuning that follows, a slow, unglamorous process that can involve long spreadsheets and inventory ratios—and the killing of lots of ideas that don't make the grade. It may not sound "creative," but it's a vital part of the creative 

This idea runs counter to the notion that time constraints enhance creativity—a myth ripe for debunking. A team of researchers led by Teresa Amabile, the head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, collected and coded 12,000 journal entries from 38 people working on creative projects in seven companies spanning a variety of industries. Their conclusion: Time crunches actually stifle creativity. As she told 

 magazine, "People need time to soak in a problem and let the ideas bubble up." 

In the workplace, employees are more likely to innovate when they are given more control over their time.  That's why Google offers its engineers "20-percent time," the opportunity to spend the equivalent of a day a week pursuing their own company-related projects. Several Google applications have come out of the program, including the search engine's suggestion feature, an expanded version of the company's advertising platform (Adsense), and the social networking tool Orkut. 

Timing aside, another common hurdle to creativity is the simple act of believing oneself to be capable of innovation. "There's this common perception among managers that some people are creative, and most aren't," Amabile told 

"That's just not true. As a leader, you don't want to ghettoize creativity; you want everyone in your organization producing novel and useful ideas." 

The recession has provided us with a unique opportunity to encourage creativity in our ranks. 

 reported earlier this year that more artists are taking more creative chances, working outside their home media and exploring new avenues for inspiration because they are resigned to the dismal economics of their industries. Business leaders would be wise to take a page from their sketchbooks, using this period not only to try out new ideas, but to put into effect new management structures that foster their development. 

And in case you're wondering, I do my own best creative thinking sitting on a bench in Central Park. 

 is managing partner of Flaum Partners and chairman, Fordham Graduate School of Business, Leadership Forum. He can be reached at 

Column

Too many people think of creativity as a mystic flash of inspiration. It's also hard work that needs to be built into every leader's professional life.

Time to Create

The measure of success at FDA is not the number of facilities inspected or new drugs approved, or the speed of approval processes, says commissioner Margaret Hamburg. What's more important is to promote health, prevent illness, and prolong life by ensuring public access to safe, nutritious foods and innovative, safe, effective medical products—that according to an editorial by Hamburg and principal deputy commissioner Joshua Sharfstein in the June 11 issue of 

. To fulfill its public health mission, FDA needs to help develop needed vaccines, prevent safety problems, and pursue opportunities to advance science.    

Those are encouraging words for pharmaceutical companies that have been hammered for pushing unsafe products on the market and hiding unfavorable safety information. Just as heartening is the call for more collaboration with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to "shorten the time from approval to reimbursement," particularly in the emerging area of personalized medicine.  

Hamburg and Sharfstein acknowledge that there are tradeoffs between permitting access to new therapies and protecting consumers from hazardous products. A public health approach, they say, recognizes that the "potential good of a new medical product or policy must be balanced against the potential harm." The key factors include severity of illness, availability of alternative treatments, and the state of knowledge about individual responses. But FDA officials must often make difficult decisions without complete information. 

Such risk calculations may lead to additional safety warnings on marketed drugs and restrictions on the use of new medications while sponsors and regulators gather data on long term safety and efficacy. The FDA Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA) gives FDA several new tools for ensuring drug safety through the product life cycle, such as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) governing postmarket prescribing and surveillance. FDAAA also expands the agency's authority to require post-approval label changes when new safety issues arise, and to crack down on manufacturers that fail to conduct agreed-upon postmarketing studies. The law also mandates more extensive listing of clinical trials and study results on the 

 public Web site to ensure that safety issues arising during clinical research are fully disclosed to regulatory authorities and to the public.  

How well these new authorities make drug use safer will be tested in a number of high-profile initiatives. The agency is currently weighing the risks and benefits of antipsychotics for children and adolescents. FDA advisors recently explored the viability of significant curbs on acetaminophen formulations and packaging to reduce incidences of liver toxicity with high doses. A REMS for erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) is in the works, and possibly one for anti-wrinkle botulinum toxin products. Weight-loss treatments and the smoking cessation drug Chantix are on the agency's drug safety priority list. And there could be added risk management strategies for COX-2 inhibitors, antidepressants, and anti-epileptics.  

The risk-control features of the REMS program face an important test in a new initiative to establish a broad REMS for the entire class of extended relief opioid medicines. This includes 24 brand-name and generic products, such as fentanyl patches, and oral drugs formulated with oxycodone, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, and oxymorphone.  

The aim is to ensure continued access to these medications, which are essential for patients suffering from chronic pain, while also curbing inappropriate prescribing, unintentional overdosing, and intentional abuse. Some 23 million prescriptions of these painkillers are dispensed annually to about 4 million patients in the US, even though long-acting opioids can cause respiratory distress when prescribed to the wrong patients or in too-high doses. These drugs also are open to abuse because they can be crushed or dissolved to permit a large dose to be taken at once; 12 million Americans over age 12 took pain relievers for nonmedical uses in 2007.  

Instead of pulling these products off the market, FDA officials hope to improve prescribing through coordinated risk management. Under FDAAA, a REMS may consist of just a Medication Guide and a timetable for evaluation following approval. The next step is to devise a communication plan for conveying safety information to prescribers, pharmacists, and patients. The most high-risk drugs also have to establish Elements to Assure Safe Use, which can include special training or certification of health professionals; limited distribution to ensure that a drug is dispensed only to patients who meet certain criteria; patient surveillance to identify adverse reactions; and enrollment of patients in registries for long term oversight. Over the past 18 months, FDA has approved REMS for some 50 products, including drugs and medical products already on the market as well as new treatments.  

FDA held an open meeting in May to discuss REMS strategies for opioids. More than 70 speakers presented opinions to a panel headed by Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), and John Jenkins, director of CDER's Office of New Drugs. Parents of teens who died from OxyContin overdoses demanded that FDA remove such dangerous drugs from the market, while representatives of the pain community stressed the need for full access to these medicines, and warned that restricted distribution systems and complex oversight programs could be harmful to patients and costly to the healthcare system.  

The opioid class REMS is unique in that it requires brand and generics manufacturers to jointly devise a single, shared system to monitor the safety and risks of dozens of products—a tricky task for fierce competitors. Pharmacists and providers want uniform education and certification programs that fit current work flows and the existing DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) registration system. Manufacturers don't want to run the whole program, and are seeking strong participation by prescribers and dispensers, as well as the DEA, state licensing boards, and other parties. But FDA can only regulate pharma companies, not physicians. 

While FDA digests these proposals and develops an REMS proposal for advisory committee consideration later this year, agency officials say they won't hold up the review and approval of new opioid products in the pipeline. Purdue Pharma is seeking FDA approval of a new oxycodone product, but has run into trouble documenting whether the drug really will deter abuse. King Pharmaceuticals has filed applications for two new formulations with anti-abuse claims.  

Establishing a final REMS plan could take more than a year, and FDA may propose some interim industry actions during this process, such as added label warnings. Once FDA issues a REMS proposal for these drugs, it will be up to each manufacturer to file an implementation plan and carry it out, or face new penalties in the regulator's compliance toolbox.  

's Washington correspondent. She can be reached at 

Washington Report

As FDA looks to balance risks and benefits, more regulations are on the horizon.

Safety and Security

Have you ever wondered why Procter & Gamble sells nine different brands of laundry detergent? It's because P&G, which helped establish the commercial power of individual brands, recognizes the advantage of competing with multiple brands in a single consumer category. The company's goal is not to have the single best-selling brand; they want to maximize their total sales by owning the product category.  

Similarly, Marriott gains competitive advantage by offering a portfolio of 13 different types of lodgings. The Walt Disney Company has leveraged its name to sell not only movies, but also amusement parks, hotels, television shows, consumer products, toys, and Broadway shows. While each of these companies offers a strong brand, they gain significant advantages by competing at multiple levels beyond their individual brand.  

Like those companies, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using multi-level competition (MLC), the process of commercializing similar or related products across the brand, franchise, portfolio, and/or corporate levels to gain market advantages. The objective of MLC is to force your competitors to compete on the level or levels where your company has the advantage.  

Progressive pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using multi-level competition to drive business beyond the brand level. This includes taking measures at the franchise, portfolio, and corporate levels. 

Franchise Level (single therapeutic area or disease state)

 As the world's leading producer of insulin by volume, Novo Nordisk's diabetes franchise covers the full range of insulin analogues, oral anti-diabetic drugs, and the new GLP-1 compound Victoza. Novo complements its franchise with an industry-leading line of delivery pens and devices as well as diabetes education and support programs. By 2014, Novo is projected to have a 27 percent share of the anti-diabetic global market, the second highest share dominance of any major chronic care market.  

Abbott recently started competing at the franchise level in the cholesterol market. Abbott has focused on creating the world's most extensive cholesterol franchise using various combinations of fibrate, niacin, and statin products. According to John Thomas, Abbott vice president, "With TriCor, Niaspan, Simcor, ABT-335, and our combination with Crestor, Abbott's growing cholesterol franchise has the potential to include at least five unique therapies by 2010." 

Portfolio Level (multiple disease states) 

Roche completed the acquisition of Genentech to enhance the industry's strongest oncology portfolio, which now includes five innovative cancer products (Avastin, Herceptin, Xeloda, MabThera and Tarceva), adjuvant agents, various tumor markers, and a range of molecular oncology tests. According to market research firm EvaluatePharma, by 2014 Roche will have the most dominant single portfolio in the pharmaceutical industry: Sales of its oncology products are projected to reach $28.3 billion, representing a massive 38 percent of the $75 billion cancer market. Moreover, Roche's pipeline of 88 oncology-related products is nearly double the number of its competitors. 

Already among the top three vaccine manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline is seeking to leapfrog its competitors by developing the world's broadest vaccine portfolio. The company currently markets 30 vaccines, and has 25 more in clinical development. In 2008, GSK distributed 1.1 billion doses of vaccines—that's 3 million doses per day around the world.  

Corporate Level (multiple disease/health segments) 

Unlike more mature industries, none of the major pharmaceutical companies has truly applied MLC at the corporate level. Johnson & Johnson is perhaps best positioned to do so because of its strong corporate brand name and product diversity. J&J is the most diversified healthcare company in the world, with more than 250 companies organized into three major business segments: pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics, and consumer products. And there are signs that J&J may be coordinating some activities across segments to gain competitive advantage. For instance, the company is evaluating a diabetes offering that could integrate pharmaceutical agents, blood glucose monitors, insulin delivery devices, wound-healing products, and other J&J products and services.  

Procter & Gamble identified nine different laundry detergent segments, each with unique needs, and has distinctly positioned each brand (Bold, Cheer, Dash, Dreft, Era, Gain, Ivory Snow, Oxydol, and Tide) to meet the needs of these segments.  For example, with a tag-line of "gentle as a mother's touch," Dreft detergent is "specially formulated for baby clothing and other items." Similarly, Abbott will be positioning its five dyslipidemia agents for specific patient segments with different combinations of LDL, HDL, and triglyceride abnormalities.  

 Abbott has leveraged its dyslipidemia franchise by combining products into single pills, including the developmental combination of its fibrate TriLiplix with AstraZeneca's statin Crestor. Roche tries to maximize its oncology portfolio by demonstrating the benefits of a combined regimen in clinical trials. For example, in the recent ATLAS trial, Roche's Avastin combined with its cancer pill Tarceva extended the period without disease progression in patients with advanced lung cancer. 

 Armed with multiple cutting-edge, targeted therapies, Roche is able to leverage its growing reputation as the leading innovator in oncology with healthcare providers and other stakeholders.  

 Abbott will likely use its five cholesterol products to take up space in physicians' supply cabinets. GSK tries to capture the limited available space for vaccines in the pediatrician's office refrigerator, thereby minimizing space for competitors.  

GSK encourages vaccine payers to purchase from its extensive portfolio of vaccine products by offering volume incentives. Roche's extensive oncology portfolio provides it with substantial negotiating leverage.  

Because of its long term focus on the diabetes marketplace, Novo has a tremendous relationships with diabetes prescribers, thought leaders, professional societies, and other key stakeholders.  

Novo's focus on a range of diabetes products, particularly insulin formulations, has created economies of scale, resulting in a lower cost structure and higher profitability. For example, the company has made its pen-filling station more efficient by using similar parts for components of all pens. Roche and GSK gain manufacturing efficiencies by using their plants to produce multiple biologic and vaccine products, respectively. Such efficiencies drive down product costs and provide these companies with a lower competitive-cost basis and higher margins.  

 The competition to license or acquire innovative pharmaceutical compounds is increasingly intense. Companies that focus on specific franchises or portfolios have a competitive advantage in attracting partners due to extensive market experience, long-standing customer relationships, and established capabilities.  

There are several ways for pharmaceutical companies to successfully implement multi-level competition. These include: 

Incorporate MLC into strategy and marketing plans

 Every corporate, portfolio, franchise, and brand plan should include sections on competing at all four levels. These sections should identify the levels where the company and competitors have relative advantages, and describe how to leverage or offset those advantages. Ultimately, strategists and marketers need to operate on the level or levels that provide the greatest chance for success.   

Build, buy, extend, and/or partner for enhanced levels

 There are different ways to enhance the competitive value of a brand, franchise, portfolio, or company. For example, Abbott initiated its cholesterol franchise with a single fibrate product, purchased Kos Pharmaceuticals to add niacin agents, created a second generation fibrate, and then partnered with AstraZeneca to develop a combination branded statin-fibrate product. To augment its diabetes franchise, Novo Nordisk is developing novel insulin formulations and combinations as well as new GLP-1 class agents, and has formed external research alliances to develop insulin-producing stem cells. To better compete with Novo, Eli Lilly recently announced an alliance with device manufacturer Medtronic to combine their insulin products, insulin pump therapy, and continuous glucose-monitoring capabilities. Likewise, in order to compete with HIV industry leader Gilead Sciences, GSK and Pfizer recently formed a joint venture company to combine their HIV portfolios. GSK's CEO Andrew Witty said, "You blend our portfolio with [Pfizer's] and you cover a range of different targets in a range of different ways, which is a valuable benefit." 

 Increasingly, market-leading pharmaceutical companies are conducting not only brand but also franchise, portfolio, and corporate war games. The most progressive of these companies conduct "Competitive Simulations," an improved version of war games specifically designed to role-play, pressure-test, and validate a company's—and its competitors'—strategies and tactics, including multi-level competition, in a simulated market environment.   

Companies using MLC approaches generally demonstrate deeper customer knowledge, enhanced stakeholder relationships, improved efficiencies, better ROI, significant competitive advantages, and, ultimately, better sales in their product categories. Importantly, while many pharmaceutical companies have multi-brand franchises or portfolios and designated business leaders, relatively few companies fully leverage powerful multi-level competition strategies, techniques, and tactics to win against companies relying on single brands.  

 is President of Bernard Associates, LLC, a pharmaceutical industry management consulting firm. He can be reached at 

Increasingly, pharma companies are expanding from brand vs. brand to battle at the franchise, portfolio, and corporate levels.

Forget Brand vs. Brand—This is War

The last presidential campaign brought two words into the lexicon of political and popular culture when the ultimate "community organizer," Barack Obama, was elected President. Pundits credit much of Obama's electoral success to the vast grassroots network he built by applying some of the core principles of community organizing. The good news for pharma marketers is that the principles and tools of community organizing are effective for far more than winning elections; they can also build powerful brand communities.    

In this digital marketing age, consumers increasingly want to be part of the brand conversation rather than passive receivers of brand messages. This environment creates the perfect opportunity for brand marketers to recast themselves as community organizers of sorts, advocating and mobilizing on behalf of the brands they support to achieve their own successful results.  

Community organizing is a process by which people living in proximity to each other are brought together to act in their common self-interest and achieve social change through collective action. For pharma, however, community organizing takes a slightly different form. Rather than geographical proximity, we are looking to build communities of patients, using a shared condition and the desire to live a better life as the ties that bind.  

The concept of a brand community focuses on connections between consumers; it is a community based on attachment to a product or the need to gain support surrounding a condition or disease. As time passes, the brand community begins to draw its strength from relationships with fellow community members, building a deeper and richer community that can benefit the brand that brought patients together. 

Though brand communities are not geographically bound, there is still much that marketers can learn from community organizers to mobilize and connect their target consumers. Specifically, there are three core principles of community organizing—reflection, relationship building, and action—as identified by the Marin Institute, a non-profit that has successfully used community organizing as part of their mission to reduce alcohol problems through environmental prevention.  

When used effectively, these principles can translate to PR strategy planning and program development, with the ultimate goal of creating strong and sustainable brand communities on behalf of clients. Novo Nordisk is one company that is doing a good job of using their category leadership to build brand communities. Here's how that company is putting these three core principles to work:   

A community organizer must get to know the community he or she will be working in as a way to lay the foundation for the work that comes later. This includes talking to community members to gauge their concerns and identify the issues that are important to them. It means listening to people's stories, finding a common thread, and working to share those stories to help bring about change.   

For pharma marketers, an important first step in formulating a strategy is to take time for thoughtful, deliberative assessment. It's crucial to understand the marketing challenges and opportunities. This understanding is not possible without listening to the target audience. How do they feel about their condition? How do they feel about their treatment? How can you make an emotional connection? Brand communities are driven by connection and passion, thus a brand must engage emotionally to win consumer engagement.    

Novo Nordisk's "Be the Face of Change" diabetes education campaign is an example of effectively engaging a community—in this case, diabetes patients—by learning about their concerns. Living with diabetes requires adapting to new lifestyle habits and adjusting to new and sometimes different treatment regimens over time, including insulin. Through the DAWN (Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs) program, Novo Nordisk partnered with International Diabetes Federation and an international expert advisory board to improve psychosocial support for people with diabetes worldwide. Research from the DAWN study showed people with diabetes need support and coaching to master their disease in daily life and deal with the medical and psychosocial challenges it brings.  

"Be the Face of Change" was developed to inspire and encourage patients to embrace the changes required to live healthy lives with their disease. This was achieved through real patients sharing their stories of successful diabetes management via a photo exhibit. By celebrating their examples, Novo Nordisk sent a message to people living with diabetes that managing diabetes is within reach. 

People from Hawaii to New Hampshire were featured in the exhibit, which debuted in New York City, and has traveled to cities across the country for the past three years. The photos and the stories behind them were also featured on the campaign Web site, along with information for patients about diabetes care, management, and support. Thousands of people have been touched by these stories on site at the exhibits, online, and through media coverage. This campaign could not have been successful without a deep understanding of the diabetes community. 

 Community organizers frequently utilize the "community wheel" model to build a core action team (culled from public and private sectors such as education, government, and business) to guide the work needed to enact or change policy. Marketers must also identify key influencers and potential partners deemed appropriate to mobilize the target audience on behalf of a brand. By incorporating key constituents and third parties into the process, marketers can develop a strategy that deploys (or at least recognizes) the role each member of the "community wheel" plays in building an effective community outreach program. 

The partnership between Novo Nordisk and the national nonprofit Divabetic—a community-based group providing diabetes education and encouragement to women living with or at risk for diabetes—was formed in response to a need in the diabetes community to improve quality of life, share knowledge, and raise visibility. What began as a one-time fundraising endeavor became a grassroots movement to empower women by allowing them to connect and challenge each other to take charge of their diabetes. 

Novo Nordisk worked with Divabetic to bring the "Makeover Your Diabetes" program to cities with a high incidence of the disease, providing education and empowerment alongside free beauty makeovers from expert stylists. The confidence-building program highlights themes like "glam more, fear less," and focusing on positive self-image and "twist and shout" exercises, with tips for integrating movement into daily life.  

To date, more than 5,000 people have taken part in the program. "Makeover Your Diabetes" has been an effective partnership because it recognizes that as women play a critical role in driving change in their homes and communities, they can also help themselves and others to adopt healthier lifestyles.   

 In community organizing, the call to action is getting out the vote. Grassroots execution is invaluable to both community organizers looking to change policy and pharma marketers looking to change attitudes and behavior. For marketers, this is accomplished through local media, local experts, and local partnerships. 

Recently, Novo Nordisk partnered with Cathedral International, a church serving African American and Hispanic communities—populations that often show a high prevalence of diabetes. Blood sugar screenings were held in three member churches in New Jersey, which also displayed the "Be the Face of Change" photo exhibit. Local pastors encouraged congregants to attend.  

Here we see the domino effect at work, from umbrella organization to local churches and pastors, and finally to parishioners who encouraged their friends and families to attend. The screenings became a community event. Mobilizing members of this church community at a local level resulted in the screening of nearly 400 congregants, including nearly half the parishioners in Asbury Park and nearly one quarter in Plainfield. Novo Nordisk is reinforcing its partnership with the Cathedral by sponsoring a series of events throughout 2009 to engage multiple groups within the church.   

Novo Nordisk's relationship and community building—on both a national and a local level—are a prime illustration of what can be achieved when brands unite their target audience toward a common goal, much as a community organizer would. By wedding the principles of effective community organizing with the basics of brand marketing, pharma marketers can take their brands beyond merely dispensing a one-way message to a two-way conversation and ongoing relationship with consumers. As Barack Obama proved on both levels, change is made one person at a time.  

 is executive vice president, MMC Health, Marina Maher Communications. She can be reached at 

Columns

What community organizing can teach pharma marketers about building a brand.

Pharmaceutical Executive-07-01-2009

What to Buy

Time to Create

Safety and Security

Forget Brand vs. Brand—This is War

Get Organized