I hadn’t heard of this before, but it doesn’t surprise me: Drug companies turn to ‘Pharma 2.0′ (World News Australia). From the article:

By using smart gadgets to monitor patients in real time, pharmaceutical companies believe they can improve clinical outcomes and establish the cost-effectiveness of treatments.



The result, according to a report on Thursday from Ernst & Young, will be a host of new collaborations between pharmaceutical companies and businesses in non-traditional areas such as computing, telecoms and even retail.

It also cites examples already in use, such as Bayer’s “connecting its glucometer for diabetic children to Nintendo’s video-gaming consoles to promote consistent blood sugar testing.” Putting some disquieting implications aside, this could provide a whole new source of outcomes data for everyone involved (including, one would think, CME providers).

I came across the term “medical ventriloquism” while reading this article in The New York Times on pharma’s role in the evolution in the treatment of menopause, and it is I think the best way I’ve heard yet to communicate in short-hand the argument that pharma gets its marketing message out indirectly through word of mouth, KOLs, scientific journals, and CME.

From the Globe and Mail: Medical association takes heat for Pfizer funding. Here’s the meat:

Under the new CMA initiative, Pfizer Canada said it will provide $780,000 to fund the new “continuing medical education” or CME program, designed to inform physicians of new developments in medicine and help maintain their skills. Two Pfizer staff members will also sit on an administrative board, responsible for overseeing, implementing and evaluating the program, along with two staff members from the medical association and two individuals from outside organizations.

The program will be offered online and will focus on 12 different subjects. The first, expected to be made available early next year, will focus on Parkinson’s disease. Other topics will be determined based on gaps identified by physicians in surveys posted on the CMA website.

While organizers say Pfizer won’t have any say in the content, there are detractors such as Arnold Relman, professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, who says in the article: “It’s simply a matter of common sense that if Pfizer is going to pay the Canadian Medical Association for medical education to doctors, Pfizer expects to get something in return.”

While of course no one’s talking on record, my colleague Rachel Eccles managed to dig up some information about the potential impact of the Pfizer-Wyeth merger on its meetings and medical meetings department.

What I want to know is the potential impact it will have on its CME granting, and those in that department. One has to assume that is going to be streamlined as well, with cutbacks. Has anyone heard anything? If so, drop me a line (it’d be confidential, of course, and just to appease my curiousity, not for publication).

I haven’t yet tried to get an official statement, but I’m guessing that, until it all shakes out anyway, I’d get the same kind of answer Rachel did: “I can tell you that Pfizer is continuing to evaluate its global workforce, which includes our medical meetings group, to determine how best to support patients and customers, support our businesses, and operate at a cost-competitive level.”

There’s an interesting post on PharmaGossip called Joint working with the pharmaceutical industry that’s worth a read. It’s about, as the intro says, “the importance of collaborative working between healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry - facilitated by medical education agencies - and what this might mean for patient care.”

So says John Mack of the Pharma Marketing blog. Read all about what it is and how Mack highjacked the Sidewiki concept to illustrate his point.

Crowdsourcing and interactivity and the wisdom of the crowds is all well and good, but, as he so aptly shows, it may not be so good for your organization or your brand. And if you think it couldn’t happen to a CME provider, think again. Just another fun thing to worry about…

It’s not like it’s anything new, but for some reason this made the front page of the Boston Globe yesterday: 60 doctors took speaker fees from drug giant

The docs on the bureaus defend the practice, the medical centers are looking into the ethics of it all, etc., etc. What I find peculiar is that pharma companies are sending invitations to join to outspoken critics of the practice, such as Dr. Daniel Carlat, a Tufts University Medical School professor. While the Globe simply says that he declined, his blog posts about it make for some interesting reading (see posts here, here, and here).

Looks like MECCs are taking another hit–check out this press release: GSK limits medical education funding to independent programs with highest impact on patient care. From the PR:

Starting in 2010, GSK will raise the bar and fund only independent medical education programs that are clearly designed to close gaps in patient care, and that demonstrate support for the optimal performance of healthcare professionals…

GSK will no longer fund CME by commercial providers including medical education and communication companies (MECCs) under the policy which takes effect immediately.

We’re so used to drug companies paying huge fines and settlements for misdeed when it comes to marketing their drugs that we don’t really think much (or at least I hadn’t until this morning) about whether or not these settlements do anything to deter future misbehavior. Check out Roy Poses’ argument that they don’t, from Healthcare Renewal. Interesting point of view. I’ll have to think on it some more, but my gut is that he’s right.

Yup, that’s billion with a “b.” Biggest settlement ever for improper marketing practices. Here’s the story in the WSJ, though it’s everywhere today: Pfizer to Plead Guilty To Improper Marketing. Among the charges the settlement covers:

The fine also resolves allegations that Pfizer treated doctors to meals, paid them for speaking engagements and subsidized their travel to induce them to prescribe off-label uses for those four drugs and nine others.

Can we make this the last one of these stories I have to link to? C’mon, people, cut it out already.