Pharma Gospel

Faith-based Unbranded Marketing
How to Educate, Engage and Empower members of the African American Community

Guest: Jay Bolling, President of Roska Healthcare Advertising

Guest: David D. Comey, Managing Partner at Healthy National Network

Live Podcast Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 1 PM Eastern US time

Duration: Approx. 35 minutes

Go to the Pharma Marketing Talk Channel Page to listen live and for call in instructions (only if you want to ask a question during the live broadcast). You can also have a reminder message sent to you by e-mail.

Background
The African American experience in America has left many of them mistrustful of mainstream institutions/providers who are members of the dominant culture. While studies show that this community is receptive to DTC advertising, there are gaps in the healthcare delivery system and many at-risk patients never receive treatment.

This suggests that a distinct need exists for an alternate, targeted program that can help motivate African Americans toward self-healthcare awareness and caregiving.

To address this problem, Roska Healthcare Advertising, in partnership with Healthy National Network (HNN) and Impact Health, recently formed the "Multi-cultural Outreach Initiative" to improve the disease awareness of African Americans and other minorities. This targeted program involves a unique 'push/pull' strategy that brings together key physician opinion leaders, faith-based organizations and targeted media to improve the health of minorities in their communities, and the pharmaceutical manufacturers who are partnering in this important initiative.

Jay Bolling
Jay Bolling is president of Roska Healthcare, where he is responsible for directing the agency's overall highly targeted professional and DTC/DTP campaigns for their clients. Having spent 20+ years overseeing programs in the pharmaceutical and healthcare markets, Jay is a recognized thought leader in consumer, physician, managed care, and retail pharmacy channels. His strategic vision and expertise in targeted communications easily place him at the forefront of today's pharmaceutical marketers.

David Comey
David Comey has over 30 years experience in healthcare leadership. Immediately prior to founding Healthy National Network, Mr. Comey created Impact Health; Inc. which included proprietary technology for point-of-care screenings and clinical testing, healthcare and pharmaceutical data management tools, and product marketing applications for specific disease states. In his current capacity. Mr. Comey leads HNN as an organization that connects "healthy messages" with targeted populations with channels that include: African American Healthy Network, Latino Healthy Network, and the Cardiology Healthy Network (general market).

Some topics to be discussed:

• How do you target the right population?
• How do you enlist physicians and ministers to work together?
• What are the organizations and skills brought together in this initiative?
• What are you doing to get pharmaceutical companies involved?

Another Pharma "Friend" Leaves the Pharma Blogosphere

Pharma Gazette's Gloria Gamat is leaving the Pharma Blogosphere^TM -- at least for now. Was it something I said? I don't think so, but here's what she says:

The last 14 months of blogging here at Pharmagazette had been rewarding in more ways than one and I want to take this opportunity to thank the whole Know More Media team for believing in me.

However, some things must end and after this post I will no longer be blogging for Pharmagazette.

(I will still be blogging about health and science though, but outside the Know More Media network of business blogs.)

While blogging about pharmaceutical business taught me huge stuff than I could ever learn somewhere else, it is something that I cannot do anymore.

Thank you so much for frequenting this blog. I hope you still find time to visit when Know More Media finds a new resident blogger.

And as for me, I will still be present in the blogosphere...so I hope you find me there some time soon.

So long and best of luck and regards to Know More Media and its team of excellent professionals and wonderful people.

I wish her luck in whatever her new endeavor may be and I hope she keeps us informed about her new blog about health and science by submitting a comment here.

Friend of Foe?
BTW, I am not at all sure that Gloria can be characterized as a "friend" of pharma. In the First Ever Pharma Blogosphere Reader Survey (download summary here), Pharma Gazette was rated "supportive" of the industry -- but not by as wide a margin as several other blogs. Only about 20% of respondents rated the blog as "very" or "somewhat" supportive of the industry, whereas 40% said the same of In the Pipeline, which I don't view as super-pharma friendly (Lowe often criticizes the industry).

In fact, I don't like characterizing people as "Friends" or "Foes" or as Jim Edwards at BrandweekNRX says, "Enemies" (see "More of Pharma's Enemies Join the Blogosphere"; Jeeez Jim! Can you get rid of that Neilsen NetRatings pop-up? I don't want to take your survey and it takes soooo long to dispose of that window that I sometimes quit your blog in frustration!).

Jim was commenting on the entry of the Prescription Access Litigation (PAL) Blog to the Pharma Blogosphere (see "New Pharma Blog Planet Discovered!"). Frankly, I don't think PAL is an industry supporter, but "enemy" may be too strong a word.

Anyway, it's a free blogosphere and bloggers like Jim can call anyone anything, even "turd." But that's another story about another pharma blogger who has fizzled out of the sphere.

'Round the Sphere With Christiane Truelove

PharmaLive's e-newsletter "Pharma Blogs: Week in Review" edited by Christiane Truelove offers a roundup of what bloggers in the Pharma Blogosphere^TM are writing about recently. To read it, you need to subscribe here.

Topics covered this week include:

• The two Peters (Pitts and Rost) on the issue of drug re-importation.

Pitts is the anti-Peter, whereas Rost if the pro-Peter, viz-a-viz allowing re-importation. You may recall that this was the issue that first brought Rost to worldwide attention via his 60 minutes interview. Back then Peter did not have a blog and would send out email missives. "Get a Blog already," I said (see "Rost to Roost in Blogosphere"). The rest, as they say, is history. Pitts, on the other hand, used to work for the FDA. Funny how many former FDAers now lobby, do PR, or otherwise consult for the drug industry.

• Jim Edwards (Brandweek) on the failed DTC moratorium provision

Truelove says "In response to comments made by Democratic Iowa Senator Tom Harkin in the Star-Ledger, Mr. Edwards says, 'We've had 10 years of DTC. Either it's fine the way it is or it needs to be reined in. If it needed reining in, then this was the chance to do it. And you balked. No one believes that Congress will ever again take serious action to change DTC rules.'" (see "Senate to Big Pharma on DTC: 'Never Mind!'")

Of course, some people, like Robert Corn-Revere, think Congress has the right to limit DTC only by eliminating the first amendment (see this screed from the Media Institute).

• Derek Lowe (In the Pipeline) on more power to the FDA to monitor drug safety

"We know just as much about toxicology as we did yesterday -- a lot, from one perspective, but not nearly enough, from another," Dr. Lowe says.

No legislation will correct the FDA's blind eye, which was turned towards years and years of Purdue's perfidy re: off-label promotion of OxyContin. According to an article in the New York Times, "when the painkiller was first approved, F.D.A. officials allowed Purdue Pharma to state that the time-release of a narcotic like OxyContin 'is believed to reduce' its potential to be abused." Where was the FDA when Purdue Pharma went further? They can have all the power in the world, but it doesn't mean they will use it. After all, there are post-FDA career decisions to consider.

Frosting occurs over pink cupcakes
Of course, Truelove mentions the Pink Cupcake Caper and the "kitty fight" that briefly pitted her against Black Kitty. I'm not going to get into that here, but Truelove handles the whole thing very professionally and distills from it the lesson I promulgated: pharmaceutical sales reps need to have some guidance about what is and what is not appropriate food to be handing out to patients in waiting rooms (see my Guidelines for Gifts to Patients).

Truelove then relates her own personal story about an inappropriate gift from a pharma rep that she still cherishes -- a chocolate bar wrapped in a drug logo-emblazoned wrapper (you'll have to read the newsletter to find out what drug and what pharma company -- hint: it ends with "zeneca"). It must be way moldy by now! Yewwww!

There's more, but I've got to get on with making a living. I suppose you should too!

Ed Silverman Rips Giuliani A New One!

My mother-in-law would freak if she read Ed Silverman's Pharmalot Blog piece "OxyContin And...Our Next President?" connecting the OxyContin/Purdue Pharma criminals to presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who some people equate with The Saviour or at least with the One Who Can Do No Wrong.

What's the connection? You'll have to read Ed's piece for the details.

This is not the first time, however, that Giuliani has been connected with questionable drug industry practices.

More on that can be found under the posting Giuliani, OxyContin, Big Pharma, and Terrorism.