If you turned to section 9C of last Thursday's 

 you might have stumbled across a peculiar sight—a full-page ad for Cypher, Cordis's drug-eluting stent.

. Underneath it is a tiny picture of a stent and the words actual size in brackets. The rest of the ad features risk-and-benefit information, with additional warnings on the opposite page. Two other ads list 

 as the headline. The agency of record for the campaign is BBDO.

This wouldn't be the first time a medical device was advertised in a consumer publication (pacemakers manufacturers have been doing it for years), but the timing is interesting. Just two weeks ago, Medtronic received positive feedback from an FDA advisory committee that touted the safety if its new drug-eluting stent. Could this be a counterattack?

According to Cordis, a division of Johnson & Johnson, the advertisements are simply a way to educate consumers about the benefits of drug-eluting stents, in light of the negative publicity they have received in the last few years.

"Over the last year, there has been a lot of data presented that put into question the safety of drug-eluting stents," Carol Goodrich, director of corporate communications at Cordis told 

Goodrich noted that two recent publications in peer-review journals documented long-term data on drug-eluting versus bare-metal stents, and those publications provided the latest available evidence around the product. As a result, Cordis felt it was appropriate to put forward as much information as possible, not just about the stents, but also about available treatment options and branded information about Cypher.

"It's up to the physician to determine what's best for the patient, but we wanted to make sure that the information was out there," Goodrich said. "It really is all about physician and patient interaction and conversation about coronary artery disease."

The campaign kicked off on Oct. 5, with the launch of the Web site www.cypherusa.com. "It is a fully integrated campaign that includes ads in 

," Goodrich said. "We created this campaign to help facilitate an informed conversation between patients with coronary artery disease and their physicians."

In addition to the full-page ads and the Web site, Cordis is engaging in professional outreach to physicians with targeted journal ads, as well as local market media outreach.

"I don't think it's strange to market stents to consumers," said Mark Stevens, CEO of global marketing firm MSCO. "I think that a high preponderance of readers are people in a demo that would be facing a possible bypass. Conversely, when you are doing something that is atypical and you are taking up space with a message in a vehicle where one wouldn't normally find that message, you are capturing attention. I'm not sure whether the ad is going to work or not, but I do like the idea."

Articles

News Analysis

Cordis, the medical-device arm of J&J, took out full-page ads last week to publicize their drug-eluting stents.

Johnson & Johnson Markets Drug Stents to Consumers

Targeting new drug information and technologies to physicians just got easier—at least for Pfizer. The drug giant signed a sponsorship deal last week with online medical site Sermo to deliver targeted information to doctors through Sermo's social-networking component.

The site is open only to healthcare providers. To access Sermo, doctors register as they would on any social-networking site, but in this case, their identity and credentials are matched against databases of licensed physicians.

Sermo's business model is an interesting one. Unlike its social-networking peers (such as MySpace or Flickr), Sermo doesn't sell advertising and doesn't charge a user fee to doctors. "We make money by taking the information our community creates, packaging it, and selling it to people in financial services and the pharmaceutical industry," Sermo founder and CEO Daniel Palestrant told 

Much like with a traditional news group or forum, doctors within the community can post and answer questions, engage in conversations about a topic, and submit a poll or vote on an existing one. All the information, particularly from the polls and surveys, is gathered as quantitative survey data.

"We didn't want to have any advertising on the site, and our model was that our first customers would be financial services and the government," said Sermo. However, about nine months ago, Palestrant says more and more doctors began asking Sermo if their voices were being heard by industry.

"In Pfizer, we found a very receptive partner that was interested in thinking out of the box and looking at novel approaches to interacting with physicians," Palestrant said. Pfizer will work with the physician community to explore and compose a series of guidelines and standards through which industry and physicians can interact in the community. Those guidelines will be placed in front of the community for feedback and ratification.

Sermo will not be using any banner ads or branding for Pfizer on the site, however, Sermo will enable a technology called hotspots, which allows outside information to be contextually presented into the community. This program will allow Pfizer, and eventually other pharma companies, to share information with physicians.

"Physicians recognize that sometimes the most valuable and relevant information around a given topic comes from industry," Palestrant said. "Industry has these expansive information assets, but no way of sharing it with the right physician at the right time."

Sermo is an online community of approximately 35,000 physicians, adding nearly 2,000 physicians a week. In addition, doctors ages 45 and older—a target audience Pfizer is no doubt excited to grab—outnumber younger doctors three to one.

With literally thousands of doctors visiting each day, the site has become a treasure trove of information for physicians logging in to help make diagnosis of illnesses, find out what drugs work best, and learn about challenges with medical devices. "Last week, US doctors logged in 4,000 hours on the site in one week," Palestrant said. "The uptake among the healthcare community has been extremely exciting."

Sermo is looking to partner with other pharma companies on different levels to further disseminate information. "Industry in general is always looking to go where the doctors are," Palestrant said. "The current model for interacting with physicians, while extremely effective, is also very expensive and inefficient. There seems to be a growing desire to find more targeted ways to interact with doctors."

Pfizer named first pharmaceutical sponsor of social-networking community custom tailored for physicians and healthcare providers. Sermo CEO Daniel Palestrant explains how the deal will work.

Pfizer Goes Digital with Sermo Partnership

Last Friday, Novartis announced that it would lay off 1,260 jobs, primarily in the sales and marketing sectors, in an effort to save $230 million a year.

Of the jobs being cut, 750 will be internal, while the rest will be third-party sales representatives. The company says it will put more emphasis on its nonprescription market and biological medicines.

The company has been hit with some specific problems in the last few years, particularly the delay of its type 2 diabetes med, Galvus (which received an approvable letter in February), and the withdrawal of Zelnorm, for safety concerns.

"Even if you factor those things in and step back, I don't see the situation being a whole lot different than any of its peers," said Mike Luby, CEO of marketing information service company TargetRx. "Novartis has been blessed with new product launches, but the situation is still the same—it has an enormous infrastructure, pressure for growth, competitiveness on almost every front, and it has to figure out how to crack the code on making its sales force more effective and more efficient."

Novartis is bringing in Joe Jimenez, a former board member for AstraZeneca, as the head of pharmaceuticals. Although his background is primarily in finance, some analysts feel he might be the right guy for the job.

"Maybe it's time for a fresh view of the same question. The industry needs to identify areas of opportunity from the perspective of being more efficient," said Barbara Ryan, analyst at Deutsche Bank. "Pharma is feeling the pressures of a slowing top line—a function of generic competition, low productivity from R&D, and pricing pressures globally. In an effort to improve its return, industry needs to find more efficient ways to operate, including lowering head counts and addressing all processes whether they be manufacturing or selling and marketing or R&D."

Novartis forced to cut 1,260 jobs due to dwindling pipeline, Zelnorm withdrawal. The company also adds new pharmaceutical division head.

Pharmaceutical Executive-10-24-2007

Johnson & Johnson Markets Drug Stents to Consumers

Pfizer Goes Digital with Sermo Partnership

Massive Layoffs in Marketing/Sales Division at Novartis