Manifesto

(1) We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been. George Merck II

 

(2) If DTC marketing is to stay relevant than changes in the way we think about marketing to patients have to be implemented. DTC marketing in its current form is not sustainable.

(3) The pharma business model and organizational structure has to change in order to meet the challenges of empowered patients and health care professionals who are going online in greater numbers.

(4) The pharma insider cycle has to be broken to allow people with new ideas to be heard and push away those who are out to “climb the ladder” for themselves at the expense of patients and customers.

(5) Reward those who take risks and push for change while asking “why” or “why not” .

(6) If it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a pharma company intentionally lied or hid information at the expense of patients health in order to protect sales than the fine for that should be the sales for that product for the time the company benefitted from said misinformation.

(7) The best award for good DTC marketing is seeing evidence that patients are living longer healthier lives because of what we do.

(8) Most of the fines paid by drug companies for illegal marketing can be directly traced to a salesperson who was has taken a marketing position or a sales manager in the field who was trying to make numbers.

(9) People who are really good at DTC marketing or eMarketing within the drug industry should be allowed to rise within those roles where their expertise can be consistently leveraged.

(10) Drug companies CEO’s should always put patients first not investors and take time to meet with the rank & file on a regular basis to listen to their issues and share his, her, vision.

(11) There are far too many conferences around DTC marketing and social media.  Some of these conferences are worth while but a majority of them contain redundant information that most marketing should know by heart.

(12) There is a bigger ROI for marketing online than marketing offline and I can prove it.

(13) The drug industry has to learn the meaning of the words transparency and truth.

(14) The FDA is out of touch with how consumers use the Internet for health information.  A perfect example is the requirement of fair balance with every promotional claim.  This clearly shows their thinking is outdated.

(15) What works for one brand or product is not going to work for others.  Each health condition has a unique set of behaviors by patients, consumers and HCP’s.