Earlier this week, there was a brief overview of what Google Wave is designed to do. Now, let's begin thinking about specific applications for the pharmaceutical industry. Remember, a Wave is a collaborative conversation that will allow multiple forms of media to be included.
- Clinical Trial Recruitment Waves - It is a perennial problem for pharmaceutical companies to get a good balance of patients involved in clinical trials, particularly minorities. In almost every AdComm meeting, a panelist will ask a pharmaceutical company what the minority representation is and how minorities were recruited into the clinical trials. The answer is almost always the same - we ran ads in minority media markets. It is such a passive answer that it is hardly worth uttering. What if the response were something like this - "We sponsored a series of Wave discussions and invited the patients of minority physicians to join the Wave so that they could talk to patients who have already been through clinical trials. They were able to pose questions and the experienced patients were able to discuss their own fears and reservations and what the experience was like. Multi-media services were brought into the Wave so that people could use many routes to explore and even sign up for consideration." Now that would be a little more dynamic. Try getting that out of an ad.
- REMS Support - Today when the FDA considers a particular risk to the use of a drug, they can require a REMS program - Risk Evaluation Management Strategy which encompasses the same tools as when the program was referred to as RiskMAPs or Risk Management Plans. These tools consist of a wide range of means to convey appropriate use such as a MedGuide. A MedGuide is a piece of paper that gets shoved into a prescription bag. Almost no one reads them. Yet the FDA relies on them heavily in controlling risk - which frankly is a bit of a fiction that no one seems to question and there is no evidence, to my knowledge, that a MedGuide is in the least degree effective. Last week in the AdComm meeting for consideration of Amgen's denusomab, the FDA seemed to indicate that they would like to see a communications plan to convey matters of risk. That, at least, would involve something a bit more dynamic than the next-to-useless MedGuide. Perhaps it could involve the development of a YouTube channel, but also a series of sponsored Waves that patients and/or prescribers must participate in as a pre-condition to using a particular drug. The Wave would be staffed by company experts in the use of the medical product and could answer questions and fully participate in a learning session for both patients and prescribers. A MedGuide can't do that.
Hi Mark,
Okay, okay, I think industry gets the message - we are all old-fahioned numbskulls for not doing backflips over new media developed for verbally inept teenagers and people with ADD. Seriously though, even if many of us personally despise the instrusive and superficial nature of social media, we have to adapt to it. Keep up the good work hounding FDA for regulatory answers - clarity in this area is sorely needed. I fear we are in for a long era of retro-active warning letters as FDA manufacturers policy on the fly, if at all.
Posted by: Tom | August 20, 2009 at 10:56 AM
Tom - Love the "retroactive warning letters" - nice turn of phrase. Mark
Posted by: Mark Senak | August 20, 2009 at 10:59 AM
Mark,
Spot on. Enjoyed part 1 and now part 2. Yes, the application has so many opportunities to change habits and bring the dinosaurs out of the closet. Clinical trials can benefit from this technology just as much as the marketing side. Communication with drug/device companies is paramount to their ongoing success with investigators.
Posted by: Kevin | August 20, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Kevin - Thanks! I also think it will play a big role in investor relations. It will be like a message board on steroids.
Posted by: Mark Senak | August 20, 2009 at 11:43 AM
Very nice post I will mention this post in an update to article I wrote earlier.
The Pharma industry is one of many looking at Google Wave. Go to http://www.googlewaveblogger.com/?p=45 and see about what the Travel Industry thinks.
Posted by: Google Wave Blogger | August 21, 2009 at 12:05 AM
Colayer a Swiss-Based company has been promoting and developing the similar concept as Google Wave since a decade and is already a success in Pharma industry. To experience Colayer visit http://colayer.com
Check our pharma Customers and Partners: http://colayer.com/PAGE_net
Posted by: Arif Shaikh | August 21, 2009 at 02:26 AM
Colayer a Swiss-Based company has been promoting and developing the similar concept as Google Wave since a decade and is already a success in Pharma industry. To experience Colayer visit http://colayer.com
To check our pharma customers and partners please visit: http://colayer.com/PAGE_net
Posted by: Arif Shaikh | August 21, 2009 at 02:31 AM
You may enjoy our coverage on your article @
Google Wave effect on Pharmaceutical Industry( http://googlewavecommunity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=39 ). Good if you join us and enrich the discussion board…
Posted by: Google Wave | August 26, 2009 at 07:25 PM