New Pharma Blog Planet Discovered!

This observer of the Pharma Blogosphere^TM wishes to register this new sighting among the "Outer Sphere" of influence: Prescription Access Litigation (PAL to their friends) Blog!

Launched just today, and not yet formally announced, here's PAL Blog's opening statement:

This blog will feature updates on activities of Prescription Access Litigation (PAL) and its members, including class action lawsuits, amicus curiae (Friend of the Court”) briefs, regulatory and legislative testimony and public education campaigns. We will also feature commentary on major developments and news stories on the pharmaceutical industry.

The PAL blog will not be updated daily, but rather as we have news to report. There are a number of daily pharmaceutical blogs that do a great job of covering the industry every day. See our blogroll on the left.

The universe of pharmaceutical blogs has grown rapidly over the past few months, as ably documented by John Mack over at PharmaBlogosphere. Some of its luminaries include industry critics and gadflies, such as Peter Rost and the pseudonymous Jack Friday (aka “Insider”). But as far as we have been able to ascertain, there are no other blogs critical of the industry that are written strictly from a consumer perspective. We hope to help partially fill that void.

So tune in, and stay tuned… We welcome your comments and suggestions.

I hope that PAL Blog does take a strictly consumer-centric viewpoint and does not just report on PAL litigation issues, which might wear thin after awhile. Anyway, that's my advice.

BTW, PAL Director and blogger Alex Sugerman-Brozan, was a guest not too long ago on a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast dedicated to disease mongering. Access and listen to the audio archive here.

What's Your Mission/Vision Thing?

Blogging is more than getting your personal voice out there and commenting on the news trying to "scoop" the competition.

It's also about promoting a cause, or agenda if you will, that you believe in. I offer these two examples from Pharma Marketing Blog (my blog): my call today for Glaxo to pull its ads from the Imus show (see "Glaxo, Pull Your Imus Ads!") and my call for a Call for a Rozerem Prescription Boycott.

If you want to be totally balanced and unbiased, become a journalist! In fact, more journalists are becoming bloggers because their identities and beliefs are masked under all the journalistic trappings necessary to the success of news media.

Several bloggers in the Pharma Blogosphere have a "mission." My mission, for example, is to promote good pharmaceutical marketing practices and thereby improve the image of the pharmaceutical industry. The mission of Richard Meyer over at World of DTC Marketing is to get pharmaceutical marketers more interested in online marketing and focus TV DTC ads on the appropriate products. Peter Rost at Question Authority has a mission too: to destroy Pfizer! (just kidding). Fard Johnmar at HealthcareVOX has a Web 2.0 vision. Etc, Etc.

What's YOUR mission?

I encourage all Pharma Bloggosphere bloggers to state their mission in a little survey I have created. You can also publish your vision or mission statement in your blog and I will link to it here.

Enter your mission statement in this online form.

Thanks!