Digital Pharma: Byte-sized roundup
pharmafile | August 4, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications | Digital Pharma blog, Janssen, disease awareness campaigns, iphone, social media
This week’s roundup includes Janssen-Cilag’s YouTube success, FDA to boost social media work, Novartis iPhone profile, Pfizer on SlideShare and Sanofi ends Go Insulin campaign.
Janssen-Cilag’s Living With ADHD YouTube video has been viewed more than 75,000 times since its debut less than two months ago. The video has attracted praise, and a measure of surprise, for allowing comments to be added and then policing them with such a light touch that users have even questioned whether the account is moderated at all. With views of most pharma YouTube videos stuck in the low hundreds, Living With ADHD looks to be the third most watched European pharma video behind Pfizer’s Get Real advert and Bayer Schering’s InBedStory series (somewhat unsurprisingly Bayer’s figures received a huge boost thanks to the last video in the series, ‘Episode 9 – Sex Tape’).
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The FDA has bolstered its internet operations by hiring a head of online coms and is actively considering using more social media tools to connect with stakeholders. The US regulator has appointed former MSNBC.com producer Paul Buckman as division director in its office of communications and, according to the Eye on FDA blog, is also considering setting up a Facebook page and running a blog for its Center for Drug Development and Evaluation (CDER).
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Novartis and its use of the iPhone, including the VaxTrak app, have been profiled on the Apple website as one of several case studies produced in support of the smart phone’s use as a legitimate business tool. “The iPhone is helping remove technology as a barrier and really enabling us to focus on our mission,” says Ken Grady, senior director of IT at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, in an accompanying video. Novartis is profiled alongside IT company Unisys and Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital (which uses the iPhone to connect to medical records).
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Pfizer has become the first pharma company to launch a channel on presentation-sharing community SlideShare. The pharma company has used SlideShare to upload financial presentations for more than two years, but has now increased its presence on the social network with a custom-branded page. “As part of our expanding effort to reach customers across the social web, we’re pleased to be the first company in a regulated industry to create a custom channel on SlideShare,” said Ray Kerins, vice president, external affairs and worldwide communications, Pfizer. “This channel offers an integrated social media experience, delivering a variety of content – presentations, video, blog posts – via the largest online resource for sharing presentations.”
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Sanofi-Aventis has halted its five-year US direct-to-consumer Go Insulin campaign, closing the website and pulling the associated YouTube channel it launched last February. The closure of the YouTube channel angered some online commentators, disappointed by the short notice of its winding up of the social media initiative. Meanwhile, the Go Meals iPhone app developed as part of the initiative will continue to be available and the main website has been replaced with the Why Insulin campaign.
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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