Look out, IMS Health: The media monitoring Nielsen Company (formerly VNU NV) just created a special division for pharma--NielsenHealth. VNU's bid on IMS in November 2005 imploded when VNU shareholders mutinied after hearing about the $7 billion buyout, but the revamped company still wants in on the pharma action.

The creation of NielsenHealth seems odd when you look at former CEO Rob van den Bergh's statement after the failed deal. In it, he said the two companies, VNU and IMS, would cooperate on initiatives. Creating a competing data and consulting division isn't exaclty cooperation, but it does give pharma companies two--more defined--choices. Of course, both NielsenHealth Managing Director Matthew Dumas and IMS claim the majority of pharma companies as their clients, which would indicate some double-dipping on pharma's part.

Dumas didn't give an exact reason for the timing of NielsenHealth's birth, but he did say the technology at Nielsen was always available, and various Nielsens had already been working with pharma. The only difference now is that the technology can be tailored to suit pharma's needs, a la IMS.

Dumas said pharma companies spent $4.8 billion on DTC advertising last year, with 98% going to TV ads. "That's ludicrous," he said. "That money should be going to online and print ads." Not only do companies have to figure out the proper ratio of money spent on TV/online/print ads, which is different for every company and every product, but they also have to take into account the doctor detailing/DTC ratio. DTC doesn't do any good if doctors don't know anything about the drug, but what's the right split? And with more companies' bottom lines being squeezed, finding the right split can save millions.

To figure out those ratios, NielsenHealth has compliance surveys, software that monitors the frequency of certain words on public Internet domains, and other trend-gathering techniques. With patients going outside the exam room for information, Dumas said tracking the way they get that information is more important than ever. "That way, we can tell companies to fish where the fish are."

New in-store clinics can be quite the monkey wrench, though. With Wal-Mart and major pharmacy chains implementing their own clinics with cheaper prescriptions, Dumas said this is a whole new ballgame. "Here's this new touchpoint for the patient that we never even considered," he said. "And just like with the movement of pharmacies into grocery stores, we need to foster a relationship between the company and the retailer."

Consulting companies also keep a close eye on FDA to track the marketing repercussions of new warning labels and withdrawal requests and to ease the difficulty of switching ad strategies for drugs going OTC. Dumas said it's all part of getting companies a greater return on their investment.

"We're trying to not only help execs make decisions, but to let them track the impact of those decisions," Dumas said.

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NielsenHealth rises from the ashes of failed deal with IMS Health

Nielsen Creates Pharma Division

Meet my new MySpace friend: Addiction 411.The moniker isn't another hip online nickname. It belongs to the MySpace page launched August 10 by Reckitt Benckiser. The site's goal: to provide teens and young adults with unbranded health information about addictive prescription painkillers, such as Percocet (oxycodone and acetaminophen), Vicodin (hydrocodone and acetaminophen), and codeine. The company hopes that by using the social-networking site, with its powerful word-of-mouth potential, it will attract people between the ages of 16 and 25--the range for most MySpace users.

"One person can access Addiction 411 and then share that information with a friend who might be having a problem," says Debby Betz, marketing director for Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals. "It's our way to reach out into an area that traditional marketing techniques may never be able to access. People of the MySpace generation are often in the forefront of people open to prescription opioid abuse."

The company manufactures the in-office drug-dependence treatment Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone), and it operates two other sites: Suboxone's branded site and the unbranded informational site Turn to Help (turntohelp.com). Both sites are intended to educate people about opioid dependence and available treatment options.

"As we were relaunching Turn to Help in April, we were afraid that we weren't reaching the younger demographic with that Web presence," says Jason C. Foster, marketing manager, news product development, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals. "The idea came up to go to where those folks are and to try to promote disease awareness and education in an environment where they feel comfortable."

The answer was MySpace. "The goal of our MySpace presence is to educate people about the dangers of prescription-drug misuse," Foster says.

The Addiction 411 site looks nothing like most MySpace pages (or pharma sites for that matter). It has a huge banner that features the site name and some information about drug dependency. Tabbed pages offer more tips and definitions of the street names of drugs. A sidebar allows other MySpace users to easily add the site as a contact or "friend." Visitors can take a quiz to find out if they have an addiction or receive information on how to join a support program.

Addiction 411, like Turn for Help, allows people to find physicians who have the ability to prescribe Suboxone. The medication is a partial agonist designed to help those who are dependent upon opioids to better manage the cravings as well as the withdrawal symptoms they'll experience when they stop taking prescription painkillers or heroin.

 Because Suboxone itself contains an opioid, physicians are required to go through special training to prescribe it. Addiction 411 prominently features a locator--operated by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment--that identifies authorized prescribers.

According to Reckitt Benckiser, the MySpace page posed few regulatory concerns beyond those of a traditional unbranded Web site. One issue that did arise was the MySpace feature that allows "friends" to interact with each other by leaving posts. To avoid having unauthorized content on the page, the company removed the feature. The company had wanted to have a pop-up screen that would inform visitors when they left MySpace for an unbranded pharma site, but MySpace put the kibosh on that plan.

The page can be viewed at myspace.com/addiction411

Pharmaceutical Executive-08-15-2007

Nielsen Creates Pharma Division

Marketing Where the Kids Are