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| October 2007 | ||||||||
 Case
Studies on Point-of-Care Dynamics Revealed
Through Integrated Physician/Patient Research 
By
Geoff Penney, Vice President & Louise Gillis, Associate Vice President,
GfK Market Measures
Each year GfK Market Measures conducts research in
more than 30 therapy areas, exploring the physician,
patient, managed care organization decision maker
and long-term care provider perspectives. From this
we have the ability to take an across-stakeholder
perspective on a given therapy area, which can afford
us with the unique opportunity to explore the
point-of-care dynamics between the physician and
patient. The
contrast of the physician's time-pressured clinical
assessments against the detailed, nuanced
elements of the disease or condition experienced by
the patient is where there are expectations of
divergence or convergence - a richness of information
that neither physician nor patient market research
alone can provide.
Recently, GfK Market Measures embarked on an
initiative to compare data from eight therapeutic class
studies for which we had physician and patient data
perspectives allowing us to identify points of
comparison (similarities and disconnects) in
physician and patient-reported symptoms, attributes
of importance, measures of brand satisfaction,
comparisons of unmet needs and specific data on
patient reported perceptions and experiences with
their physician discussions.
For this article we identify several brief examples of
the point-of-care dynamic that were revealed in this
exercise. These examples, together with others, were
shared in more comprehensive detail in an
educational teleconference on this same topic last
month.
 Guest
Editorial: Health 2.0 - Is Pharma Stuck in a 1.0 World?
By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, THINK-Health and
Health Populi blog
The Health 2.0 movement officially kicked off on Sept.
20, 2007, in San Francisco. That was the site of the
first Health 2.0 conference, where about 500 people
crammed into a hotel ballroom to hear how Web 2.0
tools are changing relationships in health care. The
excitement and energy at the meeting were palpable
as various health care stakeholders, Web developers,
patient advocates and bloggers exchanged
perspectives on leveraging new media in health care
for the betterment of consumers/patients.
And pharma was barely represented among the
stakeholders in the room.
Those of us who attended the meeting inferred:
Pharma is, for the time being, stuck in Health 1.0.
What is Health 2.0? To answer this, first consider Web
2.0. Tim O'Reilly, a guru in new media circles, defines
it as: The network as a platform, spanning all
connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those
that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that
platform: delivering software as a continually updated
service that gets better the more people use it,
consuming and remixing data from multiple
sources,
including individual users, while providing their own
data and services in a form that allows remixing by
others, creating network effects through
an "architecture of participation"and going beyond
the
page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user
experiences.
I have added emphasis to Tim's definition because of
the implications for health care. This is a platform for
consumer engagement, of pull, not push. It is user-
generated. Health 2.0 is a world where pharma cedes
(some) control to consumers. Think: Web 1.0 =
Encyclopedia Brittanica; Web 2.0 =
Wikipedia. In Internet speak, it's syndication,
not "stickiness." Web 2.0 enables Health 2.0.
Employment in Marketing Research in the Pharmaceutical Industry: 2007 and Beyond
In this month's published document for The
Orange
Pages, we examine a topic near and dear to all
our
hearts: employment in pharmaceutical marketing
research. Growth opportunities in pharmaceutical
marketing research careers, burgeoning until a few
years ago, have now diminished significantly. Many
pharmaceutical companies, as well as marketing
research agencies, are laying off employees rather
than hiring them, and those already hired are finding
their chances for promotion and other opportunities
for upward mobility significantly reduced.
Those professionals both seasoned and new to the
field must step back and manage their expectations
against the realities of today, not against those that
have been historically available. By comparing and
contrasting the two employment paths in marketing
research - company/manufacturer and
agency/supplier - and examining some of the current
trends on both sides of the table, this discussion
provides key principles that can help current or
prospective pharmaceutical marketing researchers
plan their careers wisely.
Did You Miss the September Issue of Topline?
Click
here to read the issue, which includes:
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 The Year in Review It's hard to believe, but this month marks the one year anniversary of our "Topline" newsletter and my ranting in this column about the forces we have seen at work, hated to have seen at work and would love to see at work in pharmaceutical marketing and marketing research. Thus, it seems a good time to look in the rearview mirror at the monthly articles we have pecked out, strike an overview and see what, if anything, has changed. In the October 2006 issue, we discussed a couple of major trends we thought needed airing out into the pharmaceutical marketing research community. First, we noted with some enthusiasm that pharmaceutical companies were beginning to move away from focusing the majority of their marketing research on comparing their product with the competition's on various attributes. Increasingly, we noted, companies were moving in the direction of studying issues, such as how physicians consume information and why some patients comply while others don't. We have seen continued, if slow, progress in this direction over the past year, with pharmaceutical companies turning their research attention to the study of fundamental issues necessary to understand how to create win-win relationships among major stakeholders in the delivery of health care and the marketing of pharmaceuticals, although product-related research still predominates. The involvement of marketing research in the reporting of drug Adverse Events was also a hot topic, and one that threatened to shut down the conduct of pharmaceutical marketing research if a suitable set of rules could not be generated to satisfy all involved, and most particularly the federal government. In the ensuing months, this issue has settled down rather dramatically, with each pharmaceutical company, in isolation, having developed a training program for its researchers and their contractors that must be completed before a project is conducted. Efforts by our professional organizations to create standards for such training programs went nowhere, and we have yet to hear from any governmental sources as to the acceptability of training and compliance programs that have been put forth. Thus, while this issue seems to have calmed down for the time being, don't be surprised if it raises its head again. November's issue talked about the shifting nature of the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and the marketing research agencies that service them. We followed the steps from informal, hand-shake deals through Master Service Agreements, Preferred Vendor Agreements and now Agency of Record status. I am sorry to say we have made little progress in this area since this piece was penned...  Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D. Group Chief Executive Officer GfK U.S. Healthcare Companies   |
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