Guest Article — Pharma: Have No Fear Of The Blogosphere
Update: Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, recently posted about a chat he had with an exec who says vendors are urging pharma to blog. He reports that Pfizer is too scared to blog because of fear of regulation. Shel: The next time you’re talking with a pharma exec, please direct them to the essay below. I think it may help to alleviate any fears pharma has of the blogosphere.
Original Post: Recently, I have been conducting research for a report I am developing on blogging in healthcare. Shahid Shah, a healthcare IT expert and a corporate blogging evangelist, graciously agreed to be interviewed for the report.
Shahid is well-known in healthcare blogging circles and beyond. He was recently interviewed by Backbone Media about healthcare blogging. Shahid runs the HITSphere blog aggregator as well as his own Healthcare IT Guy blog. He was also featured in DataMations magazine’s recent Blogging Your Way Up the Career Ladder article.
Given Shahid’s expertise on this subject, I decided to invite him to talk with a little more specificity about pharmaceutical and regulated products blogging. His article appears below.
Corporate blogging is certainly not new but it hasn’t really taken off because executives are always nervous about public statements they make, especially if they run a public company. Until now only small firms, who have much to gain with direct 2-way contact with their customers, have really engaged their clients through blogs. Now, however, even the big companies as different as McDonalds and Microsoft have become corporate bloggers with different degrees of success.
The pharmaceutical industry is certainly one group of companies that could use increased goodwill that comes from direct contact with their customers. If anyone should be blogging from a corporate perspective it should be big pharma because what it does directly touches the lives of its customers in a way very few other industries do. The level of importance people give to their health and the way that they bond with their healthcare providers (and by extension the drugs they take) is very important. Most pharma companies are worried about the FDA and cite that as a big concern about why they don’t blog. But, I think that’s a mistake.
Pharma shouldn’t worry too much about what the FDA has to say specifically for blogs. Blogging does not impact anything that wouldn’t already be public anyway. For example, if a pharmaceutical firm has a call center where they answer questions about their drugs’ on-label use, a blog would be no different. In fact, drug firms can improve customer service by providing tips, tools, and guidance on how best to use their drugs. I would recommend that firms start to create blogs that start to tell stories of why scientists (in their own words) are focusing on certain diseases, how far technology has come along, how exactly drugs go from an idea to discovery to production. All these would bring customers closer to them, not alienate them. And, the FDA won’t complain about anything that doesn’t cause off-label use. Fard and I spoke with an FDA counsel this week and they basically said the same thing (without providing specific or official legal guidance). Anything that’s covered by existing guidance would apply to blogs, too.
If a drug vendor starts a blog or discussion forum about its products and doesn’t mis-communicate about efficacy of its products or fitness for a particular purpose it shouldn’t get into trouble. Companies won’t have problems with regulators if they stick to the truth about their products and improve the way customers interact with them. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be careful about what they say — but that goes for anything a company says. It’s not something special to blogging but blogging does make it easy for people to say whatever they want (like folks do in an email).
So, if you’re not blogging today don’t blame the feds. If you’re not creating corporate blogs, it’s due to a lack of vision and innovation and perhaps a lack of respect of your customers, not the FDA. Guys like me and Fard can help you devise an appropriate strategy to allow direct communication, improved customer service, and who knows in a few years people may stop thinking of big pharma in a poor light like they do now.
Oh, and by the way, don’t think that just because you’re not blogging about your own products that nobody else is. Nature abhors a vacuum but so does the blogging community. Third parties are already talking about your drugs and company in their own blogs and forums. Why not take the initiative and help navigate people to the “official†word about your drugs?
February 7th, 2006 at 5:03 am
I’ve been wondering if there were any blogging evangilists out there in the healthcare market. I’ve been banging this drum for the managed care provider I work for for nearly two years now. This article makes me feel a little bit better about the fact that no one where I work really understands what I’m talking about, since it would seem that my organization isn’t the only one failing to leverage blogs as an effective communications medium.
On the other hand, I’m disappointed to see that this lack of understanding about blogging and its potential to improve both perception and reality for healthcare consumers is as widespread as it is.
Mr. Shah’s article should be standard reading for senior executives throughout the industry. You can swap out “pharma” and replace it with “managed care plan,” “healthcare provider,” etc. and it still rings true. With the amount of money spent on healthcare-related advertising in this country every year, it baffles me why so few companies in the market aren’t leveraging this inexpensive and powerful communications tool.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Jeff, glad to hear that we share a common point of view. I think, like most healthcare initiatives, it will take one or two leaders and the rest will follow once there is benefit. Look how long it took most providers and care plans to get “internet enabled” which was a direct benefit to the bottom line. Healthcare in general is not customer centric so if it’s good for the customer it’s the last thing we’ll focus on. If it’s good for us (pharma, provider, etc) we’ll do it slowly.
February 9th, 2006 at 7:46 am
Looks like the evangelical fire is spreading. Check out this post on Matthew Holt’s blog.
March 16th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Thanks for this Fard. I have forwarded this link to the editor who interviewed me.
March 19th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
[...] Pharma: have no fear of the blogsphere – link [...]
April 9th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
[...] After that interview, Fard posted my article, Pharma: Have No Fear of the Blogosphere, on his blog and kept me updated about his progress on the report. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of reading the report (The Emerging Healthcare Blogosphere: What Is It & Why Does It Matter?) and I was quite impressed. The report is well-referenced and features commentary from a number of bloggers (including yours truly). In addition, it addresses a number of questions people have about healthcare blogs, including: [...]