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.

Welcome to Pharma BlogosphereTM: Drug Safety (Notes from Within the Industry)

Another anonymous industry insider has been spotted in the Outer Sphere of the Pharma Blogosphere^TM (hat tip to PharmaGossip's Jack Friday who has "discovered" more orbs in the Pharma Blogosphere^TM than anyone I know).

This new blog, entitled "Drug Safety (Notes from Within the Industry)" or just "Drug Safety" for short, claims to be "dedicated to drug safety, including whispers on the grapevine within the industry."

The welcome message (published 7 April 2007) provides a bit more detail as to the blog's mission:

"This is a blog about drug safety. Because of its subject and includes lots of stuff from within the industry, it is written anonymously.

"Will everything written about here be absolutely true? I wish I could say that it will be, but the truth is, I'm not everywhere and this isn't my day job. It will include, however, clear indications that something's been whispered and may not be established fact.

How often will I post? Don't know as yet. Probably not every day. But who knows, maybe I'll get to that point."

I am interested in why bloggers choose certain color schemes for their blogs. Drug Safety, for example, is another blog that uses a Black and Green template like this blog, PharmaGossip, and Question Authority, among others. I chose black for two reasons: I wanted to emulate other blogs I respect and I felt it was appropriate for a blog about blogs in a "blogosphere" where I can make anologies with planetary spheres and so forth. Perhaps drug saftey is a "dark" subject conjuring up images of death? The color most often associated with death is black; but that's a whole 'nother topic of discussion!

Drug Safety the blog, however, does not have a morbid ambiance, nor does it emphasize gloom, doom, and the evil nature of the drug industry. Instead, it has a very rationale tone that reminds me of someone with a scientific background and experience in clinical trail design. We know the author claims to be an "insider," but he/she could be inside a pharma company or perhaps a CRO that runs clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies.

An excerpt from a recent post ("EPO and Aranesp") demonstrates that clinical trials and post-marketing surveillance will be a focus of this blog:

"Recently, one such trial came to conclusion without any indication of a safety problem. Investors (and analysts) sighed in relief. Except the trial really doesn't address anything but the crudest of questions, since the trial isn't really large enough (and wasn't designed to be large enough) to determine if there is a safety problem with the drug. What we do know is no registry data have yet been released indicating whether there's a problem. Nor have any trials an order of magnitude larger than those recently reported on been undertaken to demonstrate the product's safety. (It seems unlikely such a trial will be mounted any time soon.) What we also know is that there's lots of questions, but little clear evidence of a problem. Which isn't to say a problem doesn't exist.

"Absence of evidence isn't the same thing as evidence of absence. Never has been, never will be."

What's your mission?
Let me know by stating it here online or by email to johnmack@virsci.com and I will reproduce it here. Eventually, I hope to compile a comprehensive guide to the Pharma Blogosphere^TM.

Welcome to Pharma Blogosphere; Health Care Renewal, Orange Book Blog, Drug Channels, etc.

A few new blogs have entered the Outer Sphere of the Pharma Blogosphere^TM that I think you should look at. Keep in mind that I put ALL new blogs in the Outer Sphere until I can access whether or not they are truly focused on pharmaceutical topics and otherwise worthy of entering the Inner Sphere. [BTW, if you feel that a blog in the Outer Sphere deserves to be among the Inner Planets, drop me a comment.]

Health Care Renewal
This blog's mission states: "Address[es] threats to health care's core values, especially those stemming from concentration and abuse of power." [Have you expressed your mission yet? Please let me know what it is here.]

This sounds very promising because if you look up "concentration and abuse of power" in the Pharma Blogosphere Dictionary, you'll find a picture of a pharmaceutical company! Consequently, although Health Care Renewal covers the entire health care system, it is likely to often write about pharmaceutical industry abuses of power, since it happens so often!

Health Care Renewal has been around for quite a while, starting back on December 10, 2004 (beating my entry to the Pharma Blogosphere by 3 weeks!). Here's the opening post, which always is helpful to read whenever you are exploring blogs:

Health care around the world is beset by rising costs, declining access, stagnant quality, and increasingly dissatisfied health care professionals. Discussions with physicians and other professionals revealed pervasive concerns that the core values of health care are under siege. Patients and physicians are caught in cross-fires between conflicting interests, and subject to perverse incentives. Free speech and academic freedom are threatened. Psuedo-science and anti-science are gaining ground. Causes include the increasing dominance of health care by large organizations, often lead by the ill-informed, the self-interested, and even the corrupt. (1) However, such concentration and abuse of power in health care has rarely been discussed openly. This blog is dedicated to the open discussion of health care's current dysfunction with the hopes of generating its cures.

Oh, BTW, most of the authors are MDs.

Orange Book Blog
I love the logo! This blog focuses on the intersection of patent law and FDA law and is written by Aaron F. Barkoff, an attorney at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP. A few of Aaron's buddy lawyers also are said to contribute. Orange Book Blog was started on July 1, 2006.

There's obviously a lot of news here on Rx-patent litigation, which is sometimes of interest to non-lawyers. Unfortunately, if you are looking for a critical analysis (eg, what effect all this is having on the industry, suggestions for coping, etc.) rather than a concise reporting of the facts and just the facts, you won't find much of that here. After all, these are lawyers, and they expect to paid for opinions ("Readers should be aware that MBHB represents many companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries...").

Drug Channels
This blog is represents the "Expert viewpoints by Dr. Adam J. Fein on the latest pharmaceutical industry trends affecting manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacies, PBMs, and payers." This blog began on May 10, 2006 and the author is the founder and president of Philadelphia-based Pembroke Consulting, Inc. The company consults with pharmaceutical manufacturers on channel strategy, which is interesting because I plan to interview some experts on channel strategy viz-a-viz impact on marketing in an upcoming podcast (see Pharma Marketing Talk).

Drug Channels appears to be a very technical sort of blog of interest only to a select few professionals involved in drug channel management. For that and other reasons it is never likely to become an Inner Planet of the Pharma Blogosphere, which doesn't mean it is not a useful or interesting blog.

Welcome Confarta!

A new member has been added to the Outer Sphere of the Pharma Blogosphere: the Confarta Blog!

Confarta blog is brought to us by the Williams & Williams Pharmaceutical Company. Since 2004, Williams & Williams has been providing relief for millions of people around the world. We are a full service pharmaceutical company that lives by the motto, "In all phases of life, we're right behind you."

This is the first ever pharmaceutical company sponsored blog! (Hat Tip to Peter Rost for the link!)

Charles Charles is the company's #1 sales rep. View this video of Charles in action:



Although Charles believes in the motto "Always be Closing," he does have time to explore CafePharma:

Get Off My Back! I Love Sally!

I may rue the day I posted my "Web 2.0 Hates Sally" entry to Pharma Marketing Blog!

I only did it because Jim Edwards over at BrandweekNRX wrote a piece about old news; ie, the FTC is looking into the practice of using celebrities in ads and is especially concerned about the lack of transparency exhibited by celebrities who do not mention they are being paid to promote products on talk shows (see "FTC Begins Review of Celebrities in Ads After Stars Take Undisclosed Drug Money").

In my post -- which tried to illustrate Jim's point -- I cited some comments from consumers on "social network" sites that dissed Sally. One person related how Sally tried repeatedly to steer Martha Stewart to a discussion of bone health and Boniva on the Martha Stewart show.

This got me to thinking about some questions that I thought needed answering, including these: "Are celebrities paid more if they mention the drug name? Are they paid less if they cannot get the whole message on the show?

Next thing I know, PharmaGossip is asking "Mack vs Field - where is the love?" and I receive this comment from "Beth":

"Perhaps Ms. Fields (sic) feels passionate about the subject of osteoporosis. Perhaps Ms. Fields mother was bent over with a dowagers hump and Ms. Fields is so relieved to know that her fate can be different that she has become a tad evangelical about the subject. Lighten up...no one is going to run out and buy Boniva on the street corner. Osteoporosis is a real problem for many women."

Jeez! Imply anything negative about Sally Field and you get mail from all over the world!

I can see that Sally is an unassailable spokesperson worth her weight in gold. But how much gold? And under what terms? That and transparency was the main points of my post, not whether or not Sally has osteoporosis or whether or not it is a real medical condition.

So, lighten up already! I love Sally!

On to other Pharma Blogospshere matters...

'Round the Outer Rim: New Blog Sigthings
It's always exciting to discover new orbs in the Pharma Blogosphere. This past week, two blogs have moved within the Outer Rim of The Pharma Blogosphere: The Group Guy (Independent Thought On Employee Benefit Matters For Employers) and Catalyst Online Blog (The Authority in Healthcare Search Marketing).

Dan Buckle, author of The Group Guy, says he "gave up the fast lane for a bigger piece of sky," by which I guess he means one of two things: he's retired or fired from the industry about which he is an expert. Just kiddin', Dan.

Dan is a passionate saltwater wade fisherman in search of a 30" Speckled Trout. Dan, we're all looking to catch a big fish here in the Pharma Blogosphere! You should fit right in!

That's him -- I assume the one wearing the hat -- in the photo above left.

Anyway, The Group Guy's focus is on employee benefits and right now is very focused on the pharmaceutical industry and PBMs. As long as that remains a focus, The Group Guy at least will have a place in the outer reaches of our sphere.

The other blog new to the Pharma Blogosphere is Catalyst online blog, which is all about search engine marketing with a focus on healthcare.

The author is Heather Frahm, co-founder and president of Catalyst online, a leading provider of search marketing services predominately for healthcare companies.

According to Heather -- who incidentally is one of the few women bloggers in the Pharma Blogosphere -- the Catalyst online blog is "meant to engage, inform and enlighten marketing professionals who are either actively practicing search marketing or simply interested in learning more about the power and impact of establishing an effective search marketing strategy for their company or brand."

Maybe she can enlighten us on exactly how much pharmaceutical companies spend on search. I've heard from the folks at eMarketer that about 40% of the industry's online ad budget goes to search. If we knew how much that was, we can then estimate how much money overall the industry spends online. Now that would be a big effing trout to have in our net!