Pharma Blogosphere Update

Several blogs in the Pharma Blogosphere are now going dark (see "CNTO411: We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When"), which is why I am writing this post.

Around this time a few months ago, John Mack introduced the blog Pharma Blogosphere to offer perspective about blogging about the pharmaceutical industry. Though we were initially pretty good at posting content, some of you may have noticed recently that we’ve been on well.. a bit of a break.. and I thought it high time to let you know what’s up with Pharma Blogosphere.

You see, during the past few months, there have been some structural changes to our organization, which have resulted in the consolidation of John Mack and Pharma Marketing News and we are now John Mack Pharma Marketing News. This is an exciting time for us as the spirit and culture of our new organization take shape. That said, we feel it is extremely important that our focus remain on fully integrating our businesses so that we can continue our focus of helping bloggers blog about the pharma industry. What’s more, we have several important milestones that we are preparing for this year related to our core areas of focus pharma marketing, pharma marketing, and pharma marketing.

With all of that activity, we haven’t been very good at posting to Pharma Blogosphere — and I’m afraid this hiatus will continue for the foreseeable future.

In looking back over the past year, admittedly, there were times when we may have missed the mark with Pharma Blogosphere, which some readers promptly brought to our attention. Yet, through this endeavor, we tried to stay true to the intent of blogging through diverse posts including conversations with key bloggers, company announcements, new programs and trends within the industry. There have surely been some challenges along the way, but we have collected some great learnings and, hopefully, visitors have been enriched in some way as well.

In our inaugural post I COULD have said that "we like to think of ourselves as pioneers." We still do as pioneering new blog posts is engrained in the fabric of our culture. And we will continue to provide bloggers with innovative information, the latest information, support services and quality information.

We're taking a break but not exiting indefinitely, so we hope to have the opportunity to chat with you again the near future.

Welcome Back CNTO411!

Just when I was going to post something about the inactivity over at Centocor's CNTO411 blog, I see that Michael Parks, Centocor's Vice President of Corporate Communications and now CNTO411's only voice, just submitted a post about "GeneRAtions," a new rheumatoid arthritis awareness program and web site.

Parks does not get into what he has been doing since he last made a post over 2 months ago on May 20, 2008. I guess this RA awareness program gobbled up much of his spare time.

Side note: Michael, I missed you at my networking dinner reception! Maybe you'd like to be a guest again on one of my Pharma Marketing Talk show and podcast interviews and talk about GeneRAtions?

The GeneRAtions web site has this visual time line, which is shown here (click to enlarge):

An attempt is made to personalize each generation with an image of a person representing that generation. All I can say is:

Mike, don't let John McCain see this!

While the "peacenik" depicted here was kinda what I was like in the 70's -- my grandmother called me Jesus because of my long hair, beard, sandals and beads -- it is not a politically correct image for John McCain who missed out on all the fun.

I see that a black woman was chosen to represent the new millenium geneRAtion, an image that I'm sure Barack and Michelle Obama would approve of.

Of course, it would be more interesting if it looked like this:

Which is more like how McCain sees the world today!

Centocor: First Pharma Company to Profile Employees on a Blog

Any one who knows me, knows that I have been championing the notion of pharmaceutical company employee blogging for a long time (see, for example, "A Primer on Pharma Employee Blogging") and more recently I have challenged Centocor to give employees a voice on their CNTO411 Blog (see "Centocor: Let Thy Employees Speak!").

Lo and Behold! Today marks the first employee profile on a drug company's public blog that I know of. See "A Conversation with Greg Keenan, M.D., Worldwide Medical Affairs Immunology Research."

Now that’s what I’m talking about! More profiles like this are bound to give us a better image of Centocor’s core values, which ultimately are based upon the views and values of its employees.

NEXT STEP: Try a more catchy title like "Centocor's Greg Keenan Cares About Patients and Also Likes Chinese Food and Wild Turkey." Uh, the bird, not the bourbon!

'Round the Sphere: Pharma Let Thy People Speak!

Pharmaceutical Exceutive Magazine's PharmExec Direct Marketing Edition -- not quite a blog, but close enough -- as well as other blogs in the Pharma Blogosphere^TM, have picked up on the CNTO411 story (see "Centocor Enters Blogosphere").

I was quoted in the article:

"As far as blogs go, CNTO411 is a small step for a blog, maybe a giant leap for pharma," Pharma Marketing Blog writer John Mack stated on his site. He told Pharm Exec on Tuesday that it might be a mistake to have the key authors of the J&J blogs be communications personnel and that if the company really wants to spark reader attention, then they should have scientists and researchers blogging.

Melissa Katz and Michael Parks of Centocor are getting a some feedback on the issue of employee blogging and they have responded -- somewhat -- to my suggestion that they allow Centocor's employees to have a voice on the blog.

So, with apologies to the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically Exodus 8:1, I offer this:

"And the Blogosphere spake unto Katz and Parks, go unto Centocor's President, and say unto him, thus saith the Blogosphere, Let our employees speak, that they may serve you."

I also composed a new Pharma Blogosphere Spirtual, which you can find on Pharma Marketing Blog: Centocor: Let Thy Employees Speak!

Podcast Special Guest: Centocor's Michael Parks

Michael Parks, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Centocor, Inc. and the brains behind CNTO411 (see "CNTO411: A New Pharmaceutical Company Blog") plans to be a guest on today's Pharma Marketing Talk podcast about Centocor's new blog.

After Jack Friday threw down the gauntlet by launching his counter-blog CentocorGossip (see "CentocorGossip: An 'Unofficial' Centocor Blog!") Michael just could not miss the excitement.

Hope you join us for this LIVE podcast and online CHAT session today a 2 PM Eastern.


I will be interviewing Melissa Katz and Michael Parks in a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 2 PM. To learn more about this and get instructions for listening in and participating in this podcast, please click here.

CentocorGossip: An "Unofficial" Centocor Blog!

Just when Centocor thought it successfully maneuvered into the Pharma Blogosphere^TM by launching the CNTO411 blog (see "CNTO411: Centocor's Groundbreaking Blog"), we learn that PharmaGossip's Insider has set up a shadowy blog on the Blogger server called "CentocorGossip (ie, cnto411.blogspot.com)."

[Whoops! Looks like Centocor forgot to register "cnto411.blogspot.com". I also cannot find a trademark registration for CNTO411. I guess the lesson is: when you launch a Web site with a unique name, you also need to register as the owner of the blogspot name to prevent critics from potentially hijacking traffic or using the same name to launch a counter-offensive blog!]

The first -- and maybe the last -- posting to CentocorGossip is titled "Helping Centocor with its blogging" and states:

How, you ask?

By letting readers find all of PharmaGossip's posts about Centocor in one easy to find place.

The rest is an old post from PharmaGossip about off-label marketing of Remicade, Centocor's potent treatment for rheumatoid arthritis plus a link that searches all of PharmaGossip for posts about Centocor.

To paraphrase Thomas Paine: "Those who expect to reap the blessings of Web 2.0 must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

In its opening post to CNTO411 Melissa Katz, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Centocor, stated her blog's mission:

"Many pharma companies have been reluctant to jump into the blogging space because of potential or perceived risks. We have started this blog because there are so many interesting things happening at our company, in our industry, and especially around immunology – the area in which we play. Although you can read about these things in the news or on other healthcare blogs, we want to join that conversation, because we have much to say."

Centocor must now undergo the fatigue of supporting the blogging tradition and its own blogging mission by engaging in a conversation started by PharmaGossip. Hopefully, Melissa et al have anticipated this in their contingency plans and will be able to respond in kind. I will definitely ask her about this in my upcoming podcast conversation with her:

I will be interviewing Melissa in a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 2 PM. To learn more about this and get instructions for listening in and participating in this podcast, please click here.

P.S. We can all watch how the pioneers at Centocor handle this, but what other pharma companies can learn from it and apply to their own case depends upon their own unique corporate culture, regulatory risk-taking attitude and knowledge of the Web 2.0 world. To find out more about your readiness to engage in social media, you may want to use the "Rate Your Social Media Marketing Readiness Survey/Tool" developed by Pharma Marketing News.

P.P.S. Thank you Insider for alerting me to your new blog!

CNTO411: A New Pharmaceutical Company Blog

Centocor -- a J&J company that was the first to produce a feature length disease awareness documentary ("Innerstate") -- has just launched a new corporate blog that may break new ground in pharmaceutical company blogging. It's called "CNTO411".

The brains and bloggers behind CNTO411 are Melissa Katz, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Centocor and her boss, Michael Parks, Vice President of Corporate Communications.

Here's an excerpt from the Inaugural Blog Posting:

“Why Centocor?” and “Why now?” Many of you may read John Mack’s blog, Pharma Marketing Blog. Almost a year ago, he blogged about the first of its kind patient education documentary film we made called Innerstate ( “No Oscar for Centocor PR Effort” [Feb. 26] and “The Innerstate DVD. Is TV Next?” [May 21]). Michael Parks, our VP of Communications who also produced the film, broke the traditional news comment mold and used the blog forum to respond to the comment and correct some inaccuracies by putting forth Centocor’s perspective and facts. In addition, he treated this blogger as we did every other journalist and let him screen the film. These small acts may appear to the casual observer to be incidental transactions, but for us, it was a big deal. Why? Because by engaging in a dialogue with John Mack in real time, he was able to immediately correct mis-information, provide the facts, and thus, give John a reason to restate his perspective.

How could he do that? Is that allowed? Should we be doing that? And what will the backlash be? Nobody knew. But that’s what pioneers do: they forge a path through the wilderness and hope they aren’t going to fall over a cliff.

I am flattered to be mentioned in this first post to CNTO411 and to be an inspiration for its launch. You can read more about my relationship to Michael, Melissa, and Innerstate on Pharma Marketing Blog (see "CNTO411: Centocor's Groundbreaking Blog").

I will be interviewing Melissa in a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 2 PM. To learn more about this and get instructions for listening in and participating in this podcast, please click here.

Of course, Melissa and Michael owe a lot to Marc Monseau who started up the J&J corporate blog, JNJ BTW, in June 2007 (see "'Round the Sphere: Pharmaco Blogs and Carlat's Crusade").

Michael and Melissa promise to comment on Centocor product-specific news or issues on CNTO411, which would make it the first pharmaceutical blog to do so for prescription drugs, which are heavily regulated. How they plan to do this without "falling over a cliff" remains to be seen (REMICADE is mentioned in the inaugural posting). I hope Melissa will share some insights on that in my upcoming podcast interview.