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How can FDA track billions of prescription drugs from manufacturer to patient? Paul Chang, leader of IBM?s RFID program, imagines a thin database in the sky.

A senior executive recently told me about a method he uses to distinguish people who have made an impression on him from those who have not. On Friday afternoons, he fans out the pile of business cards he has received since Monday morning and carefully looks at each card. If he can't remember the person and one idea about their meeting, he throws the card away. He scoops up the remaining cards and hands them to his assistant with instructions that those are the people whose phone messages he will return the following week.

Incentives are the icing on the cake companies offer to motivate their employees. Mary Kay Ash was famous for offering her team pink Cadillacs for selling cosmetics; Girl Scouts earn badges for the highest number of cookie boxes sold; and a New York real estate company recently offered its top seller a chauffered Lamborghini for one whole year. Whatever the prize, incentives are an effective and practical motivational tool.

I recently caught up with an acquaintance at a friend's cocktail party. It had been a while since I had seen him; As a musician, he spent a lot of time away, playing shows and touring clubs. But he had since changed jobs. The bills had to get paid, so he decided to put his music career on hold and rejoin the pharma company he had worked for after college.

Industry self-policing may be the only way to stop state Legislators who want to ban sales Reps, and even whole companies, from using Prescribing information.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch's no frills-and sometimes cutthroat-approach to business helped him make General Electric a $400-billion company by the end of his tenure in 2001. Though criticized for his desire to make GE a more competitive company, Welch is probably most admired for his leadership style. The CEO enjoyed tailored suits, private jets, and an eight-figure salary per year, but that didn't stop him from sitting face-to-face with a team of 15, 150, or 1,500 employees to talk about what they needed to do to make GE a better company. He knew the value of his team and customers, and he knew that strong leadership made for strong employees.

As seniors become frustrated and Part D enrollment lags, drug benefit plans cannot grow fast enough to manage risk. Some leave the market, and others cut benefits.

The investigators, other than the people at Merck, didn't know about [additional cardiovascular adverse events] for six months after the study was published. But one could argue we didn't have to know because it's not part of the predefined study.

I've just returned from Europe, where I spoke with various think tanks, thought leaders, and pharmaceutical companies on the issue they call "information-to-patients" (ItP). That's what we on the other side of the pond refer to as direct-to-consumer communications. In Europe, they choose to abstain from using the "A" word-advertising. But rhetoric counts. "Information to patients" seems quite paternalistic when compared with the new-worldly "direct-to-consumer" moniker.

In february, local news papers in the United Kingdom reported on disciplinary judgments made by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) against four pharma manufacturers. The disciplinary actions consisted of public reprimands for three companies, and suspension from the association for at least six months for the fourth company.

The key is distinguishing between what the reps know with confidence versus what they will forget.

Changing Landscapes: A Special Report on the World?s Top 50 Pharma Companies

Pharma should comply with PDRP. If the program fails, a likely result is state legislation that proves even more restrictive.

Just how traditional marriages join a couple together from a common culture, Daiichi and Sankyo are merging based on a sense of having come from the same place, and facing the same future. But the art of integration lies in creating new ways of working that make the marriage bigger than the sum of its parts. Officiating the marriage is John Alexander, MD, head of pharma development for Daiichi Sankyo.

A new study details the physiological reasons why COX-2 inhibitorsincrease the risk of heart disease. Suppressing the production of one key fact does reduce pain, but it also deprives the body of a mechanism to curb blood clots, resist artery hardening, and regulate blood pressure.

During the past two weeks, companies from a half dozen states and three foreign lands joined forces. Here?s an update on who?s working with whom.

Because of poor compliance, 25% of all patients who are prescribed medicines derive no clinical benefit whatsoever.

Challenges of business...

achema product profiles

innovex

Elsevier Launches Inteleos Drug Tracking and Analysis Tool

marketRx sets up European Headquarters in Reading, UK

Industry experts weigh in on what could be the resolution of a long saga.

Psychiatrists offer insight on the second phase of results from a National Institutes of Health study comparing different anti-psychotic drugs.

Drug companies can do to specialists what Intel did to PC box makers: commoditize them.

High-deductible health plans go against the goals of employers, pharma, and the public.They don't reduce out-of pocket drug costs.

Big Pharma now has a powerful competitor. If firms want to have a sporting chance in that war, they need to think about why biotech is so appealing.

It's not closing time, but it does seem like the nine-year, direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising happy hour is winding down. PhRMA's new Guiding Principles are dimming the lights, and television, the most glamorous and visible media channel for DTC, will have to turn down the volume.

The blockbuster era is at an end. Drugs are focused on smaller audiences today. With fewer doses to run, we must be flexible to support multiple molecules.

In 2005, healthcare advertising hit a new level of refinement in strategy and sophistication in execution. Even better, it reached a new place, where promotion and education sit comfortably together. Brand teams are growing and learning, particularly about using emotion to inspire action.