January 2007
	A New Year's Resolution for Our Profession: Facilitating a Meaningful and Organized Dialogue First, my unoriginal, but nonetheless heartfelt, wishes for a happy New Year to all of you. I’ve had the opportunity to hear from many of you over the few months that I have been writing this column, and look forward to a 2007 filled with even more dialogue with our readers and colleagues. In fact, dialogue among pharmaceutical marketing researchers is the focus of my rantings this month. More specifically, I would like to make several points, all of which speak to the general theme that as we enter 2007, one of the most important things we need to focus on is increasing not only the amount of dialogue that occurs among pharmaceutical marketing researchers, both those employed by pharmaceutical companies and those employed by marketing research agencies, but the order in which this dialogue occurs. Let me begin on a positive note by pointing out that, from many of you, I have received e-mails thanking me and GfK for bringing to light, via the print and e-media we have been employing, a number of major issues that we need to collectively consider in helping our respective employers, be they pharmaceutical companies or pharmaceutical marketing research agencies, to deal with the present and prepare for the future. How to report Adverse Events (AEs) encountered in marketing research, how to conduct research that deals with patient compliance, investigating doctors’ use of information, etc., are all issues that must be approached at the industry level if optimal insights are to be reached quickly and cost-effectively. Clearly, there must be a balance between sharing insights and maintaining a competitive advantage. As with syndicated data (e.g., IMS) that have long been utilized in the pharmaceutical industry, it can be cogently argued that the optimal approach is to have the industry collectively support definitive marketing research on such issues as referred to above, with strategic and tactical competitive advantage to be gained by individual companies not by simply having the information, but by how they use this information. Proprietary marketing research might, of course, need to be conducted to support these applications. More generally, pharmaceutical marketing research needs to create a more centralized, fully integrated and coordinated entity that speaks for and to the profession. Those of you, which is probably most of you, familiar with the family practice specialty recognize the essential coordination role served by the American Academy of Family Practice. On a different but related front, the Medical Group Management Association serves as a central repository of knowledge concerning business applications for physicians (the large majority!) and business managers who are in group practices. In pharmaceutical marketing research, on the other hand, there is no single, clearly identified repository of knowledge and information. When over the past year, for example, many pharmaceutical companies started to require their marketing research agencies to report AEs encountered in the conduct of marketing research, no fewer than four organizations that we know of (CASRO, EphMRA, PBIRG and PMRG) scrambled to make policy statements, assemble guidelines, etc. As a result of these multiple and largely uncoordinated efforts, no single piece of guidance emerged that pharmaceutical companies and/or pharmaceutical marketing research agencies could point to as definitive. Numerous examples exist of such lack of, and need for, coordination in our profession. Training marketing researchers is an important example, with no organization having taken on the responsibility of providing an organized program covering the life cycle of the pharmaceutical marketing researcher. On-the-job training and a collection of miscellaneous courses and “lunch and learns” are about all that is available. When a single organization finally takes responsibility for coordinating information pertinent to pharmaceutical marketing research, I genuinely hope that it will take on organizing the training of pharmaceutical marketing researchers as one of its key missions. Finally, let me note the dearth of publications that attempt to offer, as part of their charters, essential information on pharmaceutical marketing research. One major pharmaceutical marketing publication, for example, contains “departments,” i.e. monthly updates, on such topics as CME, DTC, Direct Marketing, E-Marketing, etc. Marketing Research is nowhere to be found among these departments. Moreover, newsletters that attempt to keep us abreast of developments in pharmaceutical marketing research generally do a better job of telling us what company has been bought by what company, and who has a new job, than they do of helping us in our current jobs. In summary, for an endeavor as critical as marketing research, which is growing in importance proportionate to the speed with which the pharmaceutical industry is changing, I strongly believe that a significant and singular entity, either from among existing organizations or newly created, must be constituted to facilitate a meaningful and organized dialogue among marketing researchers employed by pharmaceutical companies and marketing research agencies alike. Until this comes to pass, GfK and I will do the best we can, through media such as this one, to keep the conversation flowing among all the appropriate parties on issues related to our profession. Thus, I look forward to hearing from you about things that you think matter enough to be aired publicly, and to sharing with you another round of rantings next month. Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D. Group Chief Executive Officer GfK U.S. Healthcare Companies