By: Kathy Cripps, President of the PR Council (@PRCouncil) 

It’s no secret that consumers are social beings, so why should patients be treated any differently? Research has found that the average American goes to the doctor three times during the course of a year, but spends 52 hours online searching for health information. It’s not just from a computer either; 52 percent of smartphone users have looked up health or medical information from their mobile devices¹.  Americans want answers fast and head straight to online news outlets, social media channels, blogs, Wikipedia, pharmaceutical company websites, and everything in between. 

Yet a recent Forbes article observes, “Among the 50 largest [pharmaceutical] companies, half still do not use social media to engage consumers or patients,” and only 10 of these 50 have made use of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, the top three social media channels.²  

Why have so few pharmaceutical companies broken through using social media? Clearly companies remain concerned about running afoul of FDA regulators, and for that reason have not yet fully embraced new channels. When the FDA released long-awaited guidelines about the communication of health information via social media, it took a fairly restrictive stance, requiring that companies communicate information about risks and benefits in any social media message.

Pharma industry leaders share their expertise on Pharma Forum Dialogues, the blog launched by New York Pharma Forum in 2014.  Here are the top 3 most-read blog posts of 2014.

By: Clark G. Sullivan, Michael D. Hobbs, and Austin Padgett, Troutman Sanders LLP

Corruption and Bribery Concerns Affecting Japanese Pharmaceutical Companies Operating in the United States

By Kim Nemirow, Cori Lable, and Hidemi Chen, Ropes & Gray

Recent criminal enforcement actions against Japanese companies and executives have made very clear that no company or employee is safe from charges of bribery and corruption.  Japanese pharmaceutical companies that operate in the United States must be aware of anti-corruption laws in both the United States and Japan.  These laws can be used to prosecute misconduct occurring in Japan, the United States, and even other countries—highlighting the need for companies to ensure that they have robust compliance policies and programs in place around the globe.

“Health care delivery for the aging population, already a problem, will become an even greater concern in the future,” said Yuji Matsue, Senior Vice President, Eisai Company Ltd., and Chairman & CEO, Eisai Inc., at the 25th Annual General Assembly of New York Pharma Forum. “By 2050 the age 85 and older population will increase by 350 percent.  The number with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is also projected to increase more than three-fold.” AD is the most expensive health condition in the United States, he added, now costing society $214 billion a year and projected to cost $1.2 trillion by 2050. The program took place on December 5th at the New York Athletic Club in New York City and featured four other speakers in addition to Mr. Matsue, the panel facilitator:

Antitrust accusations based on so-called “product hopping” continue to make the headlines, most recently after the Attorney General for the State of New York (the “AG”) brought an antitrust lawsuit against Actavis, PLC and its subsidiary Forest Laboratories, LLC (collectively “Forest”) based on their marketing plans for Alzheimer’s drug Namenda^®.  “Product hopping” is a term used by the United States Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) to refer to the practice by some pharmaceutical companies of withdrawing one version of a drug in favor of another, as generic competition for the first version approaches.

I don’t have to tell the readers of this blog that a lot of very significant changes have occurred in both the Japanese drug industry and Big Pharma companies over the last 25 years, since the founding of New York Pharma Forum (NYPF). Not surprisingly, these changes have had an effect on the organization.

Many Japanese drug industry executives were adamant 25 years ago that mergers were a Western phenomenon and would not affect the Japanese industry. “It is not the Japanese way of doing business,” we heard. I recall a meeting of New York Pharma Forum in the early ‘90s at which the guest speaker was a Ministry of Health & Welfare official from Tokyo, who told the audience not to expect the government to protect Japanese pharma companies any longer from global competition in the domestic Japanese market. He predicted that, in order to survive, there would be many mergers in the Japanese pharma industry, which, he said, was sorely in need of consolidation. A blanket of silence descended on the room.

Twenty-five years ago I participated in an intense series of meetings in New York with a group of Japanese pharmaceutical executives and one Japanese government official. We were planning the launch of a new industry organization, which we named New York Pharma Forum.

By Al Cacozza and Sarah Blankstein, Ropes & Gray

On June 6, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) issued a response granting the two pending FDA citizen petitions[1] filed by members of the Medical Information Working Group (“MIWG”), an ad hoc coalition of drug and device manufacturers to which Ropes & Gray LLP serves as one of the outside counsel. This response reflects the agency’s on-going effort to clarify its regulatory approach regarding manufacturer communication of scientific and medical information to health care professionals (“HCPs”). This post summarizes the key aspects and implications of that response.

By Al Cacozza and Sarah Blankstein, Ropes & Gray

On June 6, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) issued a draft guidance on new risk information for approved drugs. The document is entitled “Guidance for Industry: Distributing Scientific and Medical Publications on Risk Information for Approved Prescription Drugs and Biological Products—Recommended Practices.”  This post summarizes the key aspects of that document.