News Articles

Aventis Leaders (left to right) Gerald Belle, Richard Markham, and Thierry Soursac meet o­n a rare day when all three are at the company's North American headquarters in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Trying to keep pace with news about Aventis is like trying to bail water out of a canoe with a teaspoon. In December alone, during the time of year when most corporate offices look like ghost towns except for the blinking lights of Christmas trees, the company submitted four new drug applications (NDAs), announced a major o­ncology research collaboration deal, revealed positive clinical trial results supporting a new indication for its flagship brand, and sold two business units to the tune of nearly $1 billion.

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Kevin Gopal
Pharmaceutical Executive, Mar 1, 2002

The newest study released by the Association of Medical Publishers (AMP) suggests that pharma companies could improve their return o­n investment by taking a more mathematical approach to determining the marketing mix. AMP's Analysis of ROI for Pharmaceutical Promotion (ARPP) study, a follow-up to its 2001 ROI Analysis of Pharmaceutical Promotion study (RAPP), determined companies' returns for detailing, DTC, medical journal advertising, and meetings and events spending. Study author Dick Wittink, PhD, a professor of management and marketing at the Yale School of Management, modified RAPP by analyzing more current spending data and more realistic brand size categories and by exploring ROI for the therapeutic categories of hypertension, asthma, and arthritis.

Lagos, Nigeria-FDA refused to confirm or deny that it was launching a criminal investigation into Pfizer’s conduct during a 1996 clinical trial for Trovan (alatrofloxacin) in Nigerian patients.FDA’s "no comment" follows the Washington Post’s report that its Office of Criminal Investigation has been collecting information about the trial of the antibiotic, which has since been approved.

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Americans' life expectancy hit an all-time high in 2001, while age-adjusted deaths hit an all-time low, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report documents that the national age-adjusted death rate decreased slightly from 869 deaths per 100,000 population in 2000 to 855 deaths per 100,000 in 2001. There were declines in mortality among most racial, ethnic and gender groups.

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Search engine positioning (SEP) is a critical component of any o­nline marketing plan. It is the art and science of increasing a website's visibility among major search engines and directories with a strategically defined set of key words. By using relevant phrases in the major search properties, companies can achieve the kind of positioning that will reach visitors looking for products and services. This article outlines how pharma companies can build an effective SEP strategy to inform and educate an o­nline audience and still satisfy FDA regulations.

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percent growth, surpassing its nearest competitor by $10 billion or so. The company also had the best-selling product: Lipitor at $9.23 billion. (See “Top 10 Products,” page 63.) Some companies had a tough year: Schering-Plough dropped from 14 to 17 and lost a quarter of its sales; Akzo Nobel plunged from 22 to 27 (based mostly o­n divestitures and restructuring), and several Japanese companies fell in the rankings, which they claim was a result of reduced government reimbursement for their products. Overall, the news is good: The industry grew 9 percent (according to IMS Health) and had prescription sales of $466 billion. In fact, this is the first year that all 50 companies cleared $1 billion in sales.

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Kevin Gopal
Pharmaceutical Executive, Apr 1, 2002

According to many legislators and the media, pharma companies, abetted by Madison Avenue, lead the corporate villain list, just below auditors and errant CEOs. The critics' complaint: Compelled by clever-and expensive-advertising, gullible consumers are pressuring physicians to write prescriptions, then rushing out to buy unnecessary drugs, thereby pushing pharmaceutical costs up at double-digit rates. The numbers seem to support the accusation. Medications accounted for more than 10 percent of healthcare spending in 2001, up from about 6 percent in 1990. And the leap of logic that many critics make, as Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow told the New York Times recently, is that "excessive advertising o­nly leads to higher prices at the pharmacy."

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Joanna Breitstein
Pharmaceutical Executive, Dec 1, 2001