Author Archives: Richard Meyer

About Richard Meyer

Passionate, award-winning Marketing and Media Executive with an MBA and 15+ years success implementing cutting-edge strategies. Career highlights include driving development/launch of a groundbreaking e-Marketing branding initiative for Eli Lilly product Cialis that led to Website becoming #1 online pharma destination (and #1 in prescription conversions), increasing leads 30% and ROI 38% for $1B manufacturer Medtronic

Not having a PCP can be dangerous to patients

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  • Accenture reports that Gen Z and millennials are least likely to have a primary care physician.
  • Younger health consumers are not satisfied with the “status quo” of today’s healthcare.
  • At the heart of their needs are shorter wait times, cost and the need for personalized attention.
  • Can they really change healthcare or are they risking their health and wellbeing by not having a regular PCP?
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Facebook has a ton of false or misleading health information

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  • Three quarters of health information on Facebook was either misleading or included some false information. Only three were considered “highly credible.” Some lacked context of the issue, exaggerated the harms of a potential threat, or overstated research findings.
  • Many articles never back claims with links to original sources or research studies to support findings.
  • In terms of overall credibility, slightly less than half, of posts, achieved a high credibility rating. However, highly rated articles received 11 million shares, while poorly rated articles had roughly 8.5 million shares.
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Survey on digital health doesn’t make sense

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  • According to Rock Health adoption of health continues to rise while consumers leverage digital health tools to address concrete health needs.
  • Most doctors say they have not recommended any general health and wellness apps or wearables to their patients. (Source: Kantar)
  • For medical-grade devices, the results are similar, with 70% of doctors saying they have not recommended medical-grade web-connected devices to their patients. (Source: Kantar).
  • Millennials, who usually have a high adoption rate of digital health, is failing as they are the most obese generation.
  • Most Americans are concerned about their weight and understand the connection between weight and cardiovascular health, but a substantial proportion of them are not doing much to lose excess weight, according to a Cleveland Clinic survey.
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6 Year old DTC study is not​ applicable today

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  • A CMI/Compass study in 2013 suggested a dip in physician support for DTC with less than half (48%) indicating that DTC advertising informed, educated, and empowered patients. And, a slight majority (53%) of physicians who responded to the survey were opposed to DTC advertising.
  • 78% feel that Direct-to-Consumer advertising leads to a preference for brand name drugs when a generic is adequate
  • Only 20% of physicians agree (5% strongly; 15% somewhat) that Direct-to-Consumer pharmaceutical advertising strengthens a patient’s relationship with a clinician
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Why is pharma so addicted to growth?

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  • As sales of Merck & Co.’s immuno-oncology heavy hitter Keytruda soared 66% in the fourth quarter to $2.15 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations they were knocked because analysts want to know ‘what’s next”?
  • Pharma is obsessed with fighting and winning and dominating even if it means making bad business decisions.
  • The wisdom of setting business goals—always striving for bigger and better—is so established within pharma that it seems like the only thing left to debate is whether the goals are ambitious enough.
  • Pharma is suffering from ambition hyperinflation.
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Pharma still blaming drug middlemen for obscene prices

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  • Pharma, which used to cite the high cost of research, now say rebates within supply chain drive up prices.
  • Pharma says they don’t actually benefit much from list-price increases and that their net prices are suffering, because they are paying bigger rebates to pharmacy-benefit managers that negotiate prices in secret with their clients, such as employers and labor unions.
  • Drugmakers’ price increases are unrelated to the rebates, according to research commissioned by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a trade group for PBMs.
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