It was a banner year for FDA drug approvals. The approval of 30 new therapeutics is the second highest number in the past decade (2004 saw 36 approvals). There were 24 new molecular entities and 6 new biologics that address major unmet medical needs, hit new molecular targets, and/or leverage molecular profiling to add a degree of precision to the art of medicine. Analysts highlight the high degree of innovation in the 2011 approvals, which includes 11 first-in-class products and 11 orphan drugs.

Cancer had the highest number of new drug approvals with 8, and analysts note that the approval rate for cancer drugs is higher than in the past. Seven of the 8 newly approved cancer agents had received orphan drug status, which might have expedited the path to regulatory approval. Also notable is the approval of 2 cancer drugs – Xalkori^® (crizotinib [Pfizer]) and Zelboraf^® (vemurafenib ]Roche]) – that have companion gene diagnostic tests, which define patient populations who can respond to the drug and exclude those who will not. Therapeutic-diagnostic codevelopment programs led to shorter clinical trial development time and speedier FDA approvals in these 2 cases.

While most of the newly approved drugs/biologics were sponsored by large pharma, smaller biotech companies found success in getting products approved. Notable is the approval of Vertex’s Incivek^® (telaprevir) for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Incivek has been pegged as a blockbuster and is expected to change the face of HCV treatment. Despite the successful approval of biotech products in 2011, launch success has been poor. Human Genome Sciences launched Benlysta^® (belimumab), the first new treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in over 50 years but market uptake has been poor; perhaps due to high expectations on the part of investors and/or poor perception of the benefits on the part of physicians.

Overall, the FDA was efficient in their review of new drug applications (NDAs) and biologics license applications (BLAs), generally hitting their PDUFA timelines. Nineteen drugs were approved in the first round of review. There was an unusually high percentage of approvals in 2011 (>80%) compared with recent years (typically ~50%). Analysts expect fewer approvals in 2012.

Annual reports like this get me thinking about new business opportunities. There’s opportunity to seek out therapeutic agents that have great potential and several things we can take away from the recent crop FDA drug approvals:

• There’s opportunity with orphan drugs. One-third of the 2011 FDA approvals were orphan drugs. The high approval rate of orphan drugs has been a clear trend over the past half-decade, which will continue given the shift by drug developers towards potential “niche busters.” There’s a distinct business opportunity with orphan diseases in that there’s a small population of patients, but there’s significant market exclusivity for approved products
• Drug compounds with companion diagnostic tests could provide a unique business opportunity. We’ve all heard about the promise of “personalized medicine” for years. Personalization of therapeutics per se is a bit of an overpromise at this time for all but a few diseases; however, “precision medicine” is viable right now. Guiding the clinical use of a medication by using molecular profiling approaches is very beneficial from a marketing perspective. First, it can expedite the FDA approval pathway as we saw with 2 of the cancer drugs approved in 2011. Second, it inherently presents opportunity for unbranded prelaunch initiatives required to bring an understanding of the molecular pathway involved in the disease process and subsequently exploited as the mechanism of action of the drug. Third, once launched, a drug with a companion diagnostic test will reset the risk/benefit equation by identifying those patients who are most likely to respond to therapy or are at most risk for a particular side effect. There is a bit of a give and take. The product will be niched for a smaller patient population; however, the barrier to use of the drug would be substantially lowered when clinical outcomes can be predicted. This is particularly advantageous for new products where the long-term risk/benefit is unknown. Lastly, drugs with companion diagnostics will create the need for clinical decision support tools given the complexity of genetic information typically generated by advanced diagnostic testing
• Don’t discount small biotechs. Biotechs are coming of age. Consider Vertex with its newly approved HCV treatment, Incivek. The company was founded in 1989 and only now has a potential blockbuster. Human Genome Sciences’ Benylsta is a product that has emerged from the biotechnology boom of the mid-1990’s. Biotechnology is a powerful tool for drug discovery efforts that allows for better identification of lead compounds. The technology is constantly evolving, becoming more powerful. I anticipate more potential drug candidates come to fruition with small biotechs that have focused drug discovery efforts through the application of modern biotechnology
• Small biotechs need help with product launches. SLE is typically treated with general immunosuppressive drugs and has been the standard of care for 50 years, so the poor uptake of molecularly targeted Benlysta is surprising. But analysts have said that all biotech launches have been “very poor” last year, with the exception of Incivek. One reason could be that the phycisian audience doesn’t correctly perceive the benefit of the drug. Looking back, I cannot recall as much prelaunch conditioning for Benlysta as there has been for other big pharma–backed biotech products; specifically thinking about the prelaunch campaigns on the role of interleukin-6 in rheumatoid arthritis or RANK ligand in osteoporosis, which preceded the launch of Actemra^® (tocilzumab [Roche/Genentech]) and Prolia^® (denosumab [Amgen]), respectively. Perhaps the smaller biotechs do not have the prelaunch budgets that big pharma has, but clearly these initiatives are important and can be uniquely leveraged from a marketing perspective. Not that all this can be done on a shoe-string budget, but there’s a potential business opportunity to package a suite of prelaunch tactics aimed at the smaller biotechs

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Source:

The source article for my quick summary above, and my own food for thought, was published  (February 2, 2012) in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.

Mullard A. 2011 FDA drug approvals. Nat Rev Drug Disc. 2012;11(2):91-95.

by Mike Smith, Digital Strategist, Palio

Most people have heard the quip about “doing well by doing good.” There’s a reason for that – across a wide array of business and marketing situations, it happens to be true.

Call it Corporate Social Responsibility, a charitable giving program or just doing good, there’s no denying that engaging your customers with a demonstrated commitment to relevant causes makes sense. But how do you do it effectively in the age of social media? It’s a challenge for marketers of all stripes, but pharma faces the added burden of regulatory uncertainty, leaving many companies in the space unsure of the way forward.

Whether your company is taking a “market first, wait for regulatory clarity later” approach to social media or is testing the waters more conservatively, there are some solid principles for tying your company’s charitable activities to your social network:

Remember that it’s a conversation, not a press release. There’s a tendency for even socially savvy companies to revert to top-down messaging when it comes to their charitable activities and CSR. That’s not to say you should make decisions about giving a purely democratic exercise for your fans and customers, but it does mean talking about your decisions, and taking a regular, critical pulse online to find out what customers think of your efforts.

Be responsive. Activity matters in social media, but it’s particularly relevant when talking about your charitable activities. Why? Because the act of giving draws out strong opinions in others and you need to be ready to respond to both kudos and critiques. Responsiveness has also been shown to boost engagement, and engagement is the force multiplier that spreads your results far and wide.

So, what’s the definition of “responsive?” It comes down to process and resource allocation – the former means that everyone involved with the social media effort has a clear idea of how to respond to a range of inquiries and issues, and the latter means there are enough people manning the effort. Create a routine where you hit your social media accounts at least a few times each week, and set up a schedule that assures you push out new content out a few times during the week, send out a handful of tweets every day, and respond to Twitter @replies, blog comments, and Facebook messages within 24 hours.

Be authentic. Although this is already a carved-into-stone truth for all of social media, it simply can’t be emphasized enough for activities related to charitable giving and CSR. Activities such as these humanize and personalize the organization, offering a real chance to bond with customers’ values – but all of that flies out the window if we engage in carefully couched legal-ese in our social conversations.

Encourage sharing. That means consistently putting out quality content, and leading by example. The former is obvious — share lots of high-quality content with followers, and they’re more likely to spread it to their friends. The latter, though, is just as important. Customers, fans and friends of the organization will be more likely to share if they can simply follow your lead. If you want your friends to share what you put out, you should share out the relevant, quality content that they publish. In the end, the rules for promoting and expanding your charitable giving activities via social media turn out to be nearly identical to those for successfully navigating the social world in general. That makes sense, because charity is an inherently social act.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Paul Johnson, SVP, Managing Director, Account Services, Palio

“The day you sign a new client is the day you start losing them.”

Fictional ad men Don Draper and Roger Sterling (from the AMC drama Mad Men) cautiously celebrate a new client win by agreeing that the beginning of a client engagement is often the start of the end. Still, relationships matter – even those that are destined for separation at some undefined moment in the future.

At Palio, we appreciate the longevity of our client relationships. But even good relationships can meet an untimely demise because things change. Reorganizations, mergers, takeovers, downsizing and economic circumstances can impact even the best relationships. In other cases, the relationship was destined to be short term – for a project, a season or to achieve a specific business goal.

Breaking up is hard to do, especially when it’s not the result of dissatisfaction with work product or team members. But, since goodbyes are destined to occur, it’s important to have a strategy that supports a graceful exit and keeps your reputation intact. Properly managing a departing client can be as important as attracting new ones and how you handle that transition can determine future success.

Good manners prevail. While it seems simple, remember to say “thank you for your business.” The relationship has contributed to the betterment of your company – perhaps you made connections with new resources, learned a different facet of an industry, developed a capability you didn’t have before or simply kept the lights on. People may not remember what you’ve said or done, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.

Maintain status of professionalism. If you’re parting under less than stellar circumstances, keep your emotions at bay. Stay the course and be as professional as you were the day the relationship commenced. How you handle challenges and difficulties can say a lot about your strengths and character. Today you’re saying goodbye, but who’s to know when your paths will cross again?

Facilitate a smooth hand-off. A commitment to excellence in a partnership means you leave each other in a better position than when you started. In our knowledge-based economy that requires a plan for knowledge transfer so the client can maintain business momentum after you depart. Provide clients with pertinent files, ask what format they’d like them in, and do what you can to ensure they’ll be put to good use.

Keep the lines of communication open. A substantial amount of communication about performance and deliverables took place at the start of the engagement. Ending a relationship requires that same level of communication. Find out what you can do to make the transition easier as well as ways to improve your own performance.

Many times, clients return to former partners for the same reason they leave – circumstances change. If you’ve let go gracefully and leave them with the impression you’re a class act, you might be able to take advantage of future opportunities and continue the relationship at another point in time.

What are your tips for successfully moving on?

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Twenty years ago: 1991.

You go to the doctor. Your chart is a folder stuffed full of papers, one of hundreds in the office. You leave with a prescription, which your physician wrote on a small piece of paper, and you carry it to the pharmacist. The pharmacy – unaffiliated with any larger chain – takes your paper, files it, and fills your prescription. If it’s for a “scheduled” drug, like a narcotic, you sign your name in a large ledger.

Today: 2011.

That chart is likely to be a digital file, and your prescription is equally likely to be transmitted electronically to your pharmacy, where it is filed digitally and cross-checked against your prescription history, for contraindications, and your personal history, for allergies. Your input is either verbal or digital – an answer to a question that you’re asked, which is typed in, or a digital signature. Some people do have a “care team” structure where their different health providers interact directly, but they’re likely to be extremely well-off, or dealing with a serious and specialized issue such as cancer.

Twenty years in the future: 2031. What will your healthcare experience look like?

Despite too many years of legislative hang-ups and politicking, we’ve finally attained a unifiedsystem of electronic health-care records. From your patient profile to your visit report to your prescriptions to your reviews of your experiences, it’s all digital, searchable and shareable.

Your physician and pharmacist both access the same data. Also included are your massage therapist, who helps you with your bad back, and, of course, your insurance. Your dentist or your allergist, however, have different permission levels. The only one who can see everything is you.

You aren’t a lone ship sailing from port to port to manage your healthcare anymore. Your care team can be linked as closely as you would like them to be.

This helps them to address red flags and head off health problems. They’re compensated more highly for preventative work than for curative or palliative care, so they are able to focus accordingly.

Paperwork is minimized, allowing back-office work to be replaced by true patient care. Visit lengths have grown from under 20 minutes to half an hour, and waiting time has shrunk from nearly an hour to 10 minutes.

Because information no longer requires physical housing, many physicians are reverting to house calls, a practice that appeals especially to the elderly, parents of small children, and professionals working long hours.

Because each patient owns the repository of their health data, a variety of tools have sprung up to help them parse and utilize it. Digital scales, thermometers, sleep monitors, blood-sugar monitors and other small wireless tools feed that repository effortlessly, making it ever more useful in predicting and monitoring your health.

What are you working on that can help this future arrive sooner?

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project eight in 10 people have gone online looking for health-related information. It seems everyone is hitting Google to research medical conditions, locate a physician, find new treatment therapies, or learn about the latest fad diet. Search is the gateway technology to other social media and inspires action. From search, people discover communities, make decisions about a prescription or treatment, increase their ability to perform self care, etc.

Beyond thinking about what someone would type into Google, getting the most from your search campaign requires understanding your target audience, knowing where they interact and gather information, and then getting them to do something, whether that’s visit your company website, make a purchase or enroll in a clinical trial.

How can companies get the most from their search campaign?

Increase digital landscape knowledge, gather information about the population you’re trying to attract and offer them something of value. The challenge is to figure out where your demographic is online and focus your communication strategy around it. Be careful not to pigeon-hole your strategy. Multichannel, multi-audience campaigns require customized SEO efforts. When you deliver value to your customers they’ll be encouraged to share their experience with others.

Create profiles on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Flickr, YouTube, and LinkedIn and take time to periodically review and update them. There are different places and opportunities to increase visibility. Search engines are just one way users find information – remember to think about other avenues such as social networks, linked data, mobile apps, social bookmarking sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon and Digg, online directories, and industry publications.

Know what words and phrases your reader is searching for and craft well-written copy for every Web page. High-quality information will ensure people return to your website and share it with their network. Well-written content creates higher levels of engagement, search engine rankings and promotes the likelihood of links from other sites. Create a list of targeted keywords and use them throughout your content and in various titles. Run keyword audits on competitor sites as well, particularly if they rank higher than yours in major search engines. Titles should be interesting to read, but clearly communicate what the reader can expect to learn.

First-page SEO ranking is important and requires ongoing management and optimization. If your site is appearing at page three for a given keyword phrase, it’s time to make some changes – most people don’t look beyond the first page of search results. Because rankings fluctuate, depending on competition and changes in the Google algorithm, it’s important to monitor rankings over time, and determine if you need to make changes in order to maintain top positions.

Measure everything. Providing value and information of interest to patients, medical professionals or other targets is of primary importance. Use these criteria to build searches on your company, products, and competitors and adjust your search strategy accordingly. Beyond rankings, measure conversations, engagement, brand advocates, influence and links. Appearing at the top of organic search results is a bonus, but achieving the goal you set out to achieve in the first place is a more important measure. Your position in search results or the number of followers on Twitter is meaningless if your campaign isn’t producing intended results.

Together, search and web analytics are important precisely because they are consistently and quantitatively measurable. They should be a top priority not only because they can drive your online marketing success, but because they can be a topline indicator of how successful your offline efforts are as well.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Mike Smith, Digital Strategist, Palio

If you had asked a marketer back in 1990 whether digital marketing is right for the pharma industry, the most affirmative answer you’d probably get was: “It depends.”

After all, the regulatory framework was almost non-existent, fewer people were consuming online marketing and those that did were generally just part of a top-down messaging adaptation that followed a traditional one-to-many, broadcast-centric, message-and-channel orthodoxy at the time.

Fast forward two decades to today: One variable hasn’t changed much – We’re still looking at an uncertain regulatory framework for digital marketing. But the question of whether pharma should be marketing online is largely settled, and the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Make that a decided “yes, but…” There’s success to be found, but it often means overcoming internal inertia or hesitancy.

“Yes, but everything’s social these days and we can’t trust the sales force with social media.” OK, so keep social media – which is really nothing more than engaging target audiences with an authentic voice via interactive channels – squarely in marketing. Certainly, some companies are taking that approach and it won’t likely be the kiss of death for your next blockbuster product. But increasingly, the companies that can respond quickest and most effectively via social channels are the ones where many voices – often, voices closest to the prospects – are involved.

“Yes, but measuring ROI on digital marketing is hard/challenging/scary/voodoo.” No, it isn’t. In fact, online advertising delivers the sort of targeting and measurable results old-school advertisers would have only dreamed of having. When people talk about the challenges of measuring ROI in online marketing, they usually mean one of two things: Either the innate conundrum of relevant ROI numbers from social media or the relatively low click-through rates in some online ads. The former usually stems from treating social media as a retail campaign when most of it is more akin to branding efforts. The latter? Well, there are lots of reasons, but increasingly the first thing to look at in a poorly performing online campaign is whether or not there was a parallel social strategy to help extend it.

“Yes, but our domain expertise is in the non-digital world – we lack the human capital to fully leverage online marketing.” Then hire someone – or lots of people to implement, execute and manage your program. That may sound like a flippant answer, but here’s a non-flippant number: In 2010, 79% of the world’s 100 largest companies used at least once social media channel for their marketing. And another: Twitter adds 300,000 new users a day. Against that kind of momentum, online is no longer about “domain expertise” – it’s an immediate, strategic business imperative.

It’s not 1990 anymore – the question isn’t whether pharma should be fully immersed in digital marketing, but rather: “Who will change the game with the next big breakthrough campaign?”

Will it be you?

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Meleik Goodwill, Medical Director, Palio

One of the classic definitions of marketing is delivering value in order to capture value. So it would seem that when someone’s got a question about your product, service or organization, you answer it. Your answer delivers value, allowing you, hopefully, to capture anything from a new customer to incremental brand awareness.

So when your organization is asked a question, the correct response – every time – is to answer it, right? The answer, it turns out, is a definite “maybe.”

One of the many things muddying up the answer is the proliferation of question sites – platforms like Quora, Yahoo Answers and others where members can post questions, relying on the collective intelligence of other members for input.

In theory, these are a great example of how enabling technology can aggregate expertise and collectively boost the knowledge available to anyone with an internet connection. And, most of the time, that’s the end result.

But there’s a big difference between 50 (or 5,000) strangers chiming in with suggestions on how to best fry a chicken, versus that same enthusiastic, opinionated and sometimes ill-informed group suggesting the best cholesterol medication, or whether vaccines are, in fact, safe.

Getting back to that chestnut about delivering and capturing value, the marketer’s instinct on things like this is usually some variant of “dive in!” After all, there’s an aggregated audience of people seeking information about your product or service, right? But the answer isn’t that clear-cut.

There’s a lack of clarity from regulators on how pharma should handle social-media messaging, and the very nature of question sites is that their messages have a level of permanence, typically indexed in search engines for future reference in a way that last month’s Facebook update comment is not. Plus, like dinner parties the world over, there are some people who show up just to argue – and a public, search-engine indexed fight with someone who just wants to tear down your brand isn’t moving the marketing program forward.

Does that mean pharma marketers should ignore these sites entirely? Not at all. A solid regimen of monitoring and privately responding to questions (a feature that Quora offers but Yahoo Answers does not) allows marketers to keep an eye on things and offer authoritative information when warranted.

Answers to public questions are not off the table, but as with so much of the online world, context is king – answering with an official corporate response on the popular site Reddit, for example, risks derision no matter how accurate and complete the response is, simply because the community values individual rather than corporate presence.

Question sites are one of the hundreds of new channels marketers must navigate. But whether it’s answering a prospect’s question or making a sales presentation, the fundamental question marketers deal with never really changes: How, with this particular audience and this particular channel or platform, can I deliver value?

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten

Joe Arcuri, Director of Studio Services, Palio

Every minute, 24 hours of new video content is uploaded to YouTube – the second most popular search platform after Google. Last year we wrote about the growing influence of video on Pixels and Pills. At Palio, we’re creating more digital content than ever before – especially as iPad popularity continues to grow.

Online video is a great way to create engaging, exciting, informational, promotional and educational messages. With attention spans shorter and evolving expectations of patients, physicians and consumers, video is the way of the future.

Empowered patients are going online with their smartphones to access health care information. Sales representatives are using their iPads for training or drug presentations. Physicians are increasingly using digital media to promote their practice and extend their reach beyond the local community.

Technology is making it easier for anyone to create a video but don’t overlook the importance of creating quality work with smooth editing that tells a story. How can you use video to raise awareness and achieve marketing objectives?

Deliver value – Experts agree that producing a video that is engaging is more important than its length in driving people to view or share content. However, it’s important to offer content that is immediately captivating.

Get SEO Savvy – Insert keywords into the filenames of videos on your site and employ advanced tactics like writing keyword-rich captions, descriptions and annotations or creating online video libraries. This will help search engines find your videos.

Lend some social support – Engaging social networks is a great way to give your video some traction. Post on YouTube, Google+, Facebook, Digg, blogs, etc. and embed them into your company site. Help viewers pass the video and marketing messages on to others by embedding a sharable link or including a short sound bite that can be reposted. When posting a video link on Twitter, ask followers to retweet the content. Also, don’t forget about your friends. Ask everyone you know to watch the video and share it with their network.

Puppies, babies and sex sell – Many marketers believe you can never go wrong with attractive men and women, furry animals, and children. Having a sense of humor can also make the difference between a video that lays stagnant and one that gets passed among friends. Who doesn’t like a good laugh?

Provide valuable information – Mayo Clinic in Rochester has achieved attention for its videos, and supports their campaigns using Twitter, Facebook, and their blog – making them easy to share. Rather than slickly produced cinematography, they are shot by patients. This unique approach establishes an authentic voice and provides a depth of information and personal connection that patients cannot get anywhere else.

While pharma faces some real obstacles when it comes to producing video content – regulatory requirements make it hard to have a sense of humor or take a light approach to serious subject matter – content remains king. By producing high quality videos that can be found and shared by others, pharma can build a community of followers and use video to attract attention and grow their brand.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Andy Smith, EVP, General Manager, Director of Global Operations, Palio

Last year on Pixels & Pills, I wrote about the mainstreaming of social media, highlighting a report from Nielsen Co. that found Americans are devoting almost a quarter of their Internet time on social networking sites and blogs, a 43 percent increase compared to one year ago.

Now, a year later, social is still dominating, with the 2011 version of the Nielsen report finding:

• Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online
• Social media has grown rapidly – today nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visit social networks and blogs
• Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other U.S. Website
• Close to 40 percent of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone
• Social networking apps are the third most-used among U.S. smartphone owners
• Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet
• Although a larger number of women view online video on social networks and blogs, men are the heaviest online video users, overall streaming more videos and watching them longer
• 70 percent of active online adult social networkers shop online
• 53 percent of active adult social networkers follow a brand, while 32 percent follow a celebrity
• Across a snapshot of 10 major global markets, social networks and blogs reach more than three-quarters of active Internet users
• Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago

Pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t overlook the value of social networks for connecting with patients and strengthening brand awareness. In fact, by limiting participation on social networks to blasts about new medicines or company news, pharma companies are missing out on an opportunity to better serve patients.

Social media’s interactive nature provides patients with the opportunity to become engaged in their own health care, whether that’s requesting a particular prescription during a physician visit or carrying product messages back to their own social network. Pharma companies that engage the end consumer – the patient – can extend their message through a cadre of brand ambassadors. Social media can also be useful to communicate drug/device safety alerts, deliver daily tips to support a better state of wellness, remind patients to refill prescriptions, recruit clinical trial participants or connect individuals with a support community.

While the Food and Drug Administration has yet to issue formal guidelines, some drug makers have been advised against using Facebook to promote prescriptions. However, the issue wasn’t the platform; its beef was that the promotion only articulated benefits, not the risks. The lesson is that transparency is essential. Beyond promoting a particular medicine, pharma should use Facebook to:

• Build relationships and spark discussions – not as a linear platform for conveying information
• Provide valuable, informative information – not just promotional content
• Spark one-to-one dialogue, and encourage patients to participate by sharing their own experiences
• Avoid avoidance; monitor what people are saying and should things go awry, offer clear messages and alternative avenues for getting information
• Work in tangent with other social networking platforms. Want a YouTube video to go viral? It’ll never happen without a coordinated Facebook campaign

Pharma companies should embrace social media for what it is – a valuable medium for carrying key messages, building relationships and increasing product loyalty. But that’s what it is – a medium. What doesn’t change is the core work of examining the marketing strategy, crafting transparent and clear messages, and engaging social media to add value and build relationships.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.