October 2006
	As the Group CEO of the GfK U.S. Healthcare Companies (GfK Market Measures, GfK Strategic Marketing and GfK V2), I have the unique opportunity of working through and with our 275 employees and most of the largest, and many of the smallest, pharmaceutical companies in the world to see some "stuff." Some things I see are important emerging trends in a marketplace where I have practiced for more than 35 years. Some are just tidbits of trivia that I notice when I am out in the marketplace. Now, through this monthly column in an informal and blog-like manner, I’m going to share some of these observations with you. Some of these observations you might find interesting. Read them! Some you might find boring. Skip them. Some you might disagree with. Let me know by e-mail. Rest assure that I will try to make these observations as pithy as possible, but that I will not be sharing any pharmaceutical company proprietary information along the way. So here goes! Several noteworthy changes have occurred regarding the marketing research being conducted by the pharmaceutical industry in 2006 as compared to previous years. First and foremost, marketing research is increasingly focused on issues, rather than just on products and their promotion. That is, clients are increasingly calling on pharmaceutical marketing research organizations, such as ours, to study such issues as: Why do many patients placed on chronic medications spontaneously stop taking them without asking their physicians if they should do so or even notifying them that they are doing so? We are also being asked to determine which “drivers” of such lack of adherence are most important at various times in the course of therapy and what can be done at these key defection points to improve patient adherence. How do physicians consume information and how can we, as an industry, provide them with information in a more user-friendly format?  (I encourage you to read my article revealing in-depth research on this topic in Topline’s “Recommended Resources” feature). How do changes in pharmaceutical coverage (e.g., Medicare Part D) impact the various stakeholders involved including physicians, pharmacists, patients and payers? Quite correctly, pharmaceutical companies are coming to believe that it is only through a genuine understanding of these important issues, and adjusting our behavior to match the needs that we come to recognize through gaining that understanding, that we can increase the efficiency of our marketing and other communications efforts and thus, meet the increasingly felt pressure to “do more with less.” Pharmaceutical marketing researchers are also becoming increasingly cautious in conducting research projects. Regulatory concerns about conducting message research “off indication,” regulations regarding patient confidentiality and the emerging pressure to include marketing research findings as a component of the “pharmacovigilance” process are all modifying the methodologies being employed or, in some cases, even causing research not to be conducted at all. While many of the trends mentioned are quite positive and long overdue (how did it take us this long to focus on understanding patient compliance, physician consumption of information, etc.?), the direction that the movement toward making marketing research agencies part of the pharmacovigilance process threatens, if not managed far better than is currently the case, to bring pharmaceutical marketing research as we know it to a screeching halt. Unfortunately, each pharmaceutical company is developing its own “policy” on how to report “adverse events” encountered during marketing research, rather than mounting a coordinated, industry-wide effort. This “go it alone” approach is resulting in a hodgepodge of definitions of what an adverse event is, how to report one, how to train marketing researchers to report them, etc. Given the importance of this issue, I have made it my number one priority to work with our pharmaceutical company clients, and even with our competitors, to develop an approach that will meet all of our needs in this arena. In this work, which we are doing pro bono, I am being assisted by FDA experts and the GfK legal team to make sure that we get it right. As an important aside, this issue is not just limited to the U.S., but is global in scope. Thus, I am also working with GfK’s integrated network of marketing research companies located in more than 73 countries around the world to provide the required global perspective. Early results of this work can be found in the following document, Marketing Research and the Reporting of Adverse Drug Reactions/Adverse Events, which will be updated on a monthly basis for as long as this issue remains in the spotlight (we expect six to nine months) and distributed through this newsletter. Alternately, these monthly Adverse Events Reporting updates can be distributed to you in hardcopy format via a complimentary “subscription-based” resource we are publishing for our clients, called The Orange Pages. Read more about this information resource we are providing to clients in the “Adverse Events Reporting” story included in this month’s issue. Stay tuned to Vanderveer’s Views for further developments on Adverse Events Reporting and other fronts in my future rants! Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D. Group Chief Executive Officer GfK U.S. Healthcare Companies Click here to download the October 2006 discussion on Adverse Event Reporting, including the GfK U.S. Healthcare Companies' policy