Industry Bias in the Pharma Blogosphere

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, with regard to the First Ever Pharma Blogosphere Survey, "it will take time to fully adjudicate the data and further understanding of the [survey] requires that the data be analyzed in full. As the data become available we will be working with investigators and experts to ensure a comprehensive analysis and will report through forums where scientific discussion and dissemination can occur."

I am happy to inform you, therefore, that we have some more results to report; specifically, the results from question #7: "Please rate the following pharma-related blogs in terms of their industry bias -- very critical very support, or neutral." Respondents could answer Very supportive, Somewhat supportive, Neutral, Somewhat critical, Very critical, or No Opinion.

The results are shown in the chart below:

Click on the Image for an Enlarged View

This chart was prepared by Chris Pounds who works at Myriad Pharmaceuticals where he is responsible for marketing research, forecasting, competitive intelligence, financial modeling, and decision analysis. He really knows how to look at market research data and make some nice charts! Thanks for your help Chris.

According to Chris, the above graph "looks at Favorable (to industry) top 2 boxes (Very supportive and somewhat supportive) minus the Unfavorable to industry (bottom 2 boxes). If a blog were considered "completely balanced" then this would be zero. If everyone said the blog was pro-industry to some degree (and not neutral) this would be 100% positive."

I note that my blog, Pharma Marketing Blog, is on the "Unfavorable" side of the graph, but I think it's within the meaty "critical but helpful" to "supportive and helpful" range. That is, if you are too critical, who's going to listen to you and get ideas for improving? Yet, if you are too supportive, who's going to learn anything they already don't know? So the short range to the left and right of namby-pampy neutral is where you want to be IMHO.