- Just 13% of people trust the pharma companies they interact with.
- 68% say the interactions feel transactional.
- Only a third agree that organizations know their communication preferences.
Category Archive: As I See It
If You’re Short On Time:
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Eli Lilly’s novel treatment for diabetes.
- The drug led to impressive blood sugar and body weight drops in clinical trials.
- The approval for tirzepatide—which Lilly will market under the brand name Mounjaro—isn’t for weight loss but Type 2 diabetes.
- Will patients, who are obese and don’t have Type 2 diabetes, ask for the drug for weight loss, and will patients understand the risks?
Short on Time?
- Adalytics reported that for nine months, billions of ad auctions for space on Gannett’s USA Today website resulted in brands unknowingly getting stuck with their ads running on other Gannett sites — often remote community sites.
- Ads from who-knows-how-many companies ran in the wrong places for nine months.
- Not a single brand noticed this, and not a single media buyer noticed the fraud.
- Online ad fraud is costing pharma millions
A 2015 Commonwealth Fund brief showed that — before the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act were introduced — the United States had worse outcomes and spent more on health care, primarily because of greater use of medical technology and higher prices, compared to other high-income countries. The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on health care. The U.S. ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes but second on care process measures.
Biogen announced that CEO Michel Vounatsos is being replaced as the big biotech undergoes a restructuring of the pipeline. It’s long overdue but kind of like putting smoke detectors in a house that has burnt down.
The top executive at McKinsey & Company appeared before Congress to answer for the consulting firm’s role in fanning the opioid crisis and came under intense criticism from lawmakers. One likened the firm’s earnings from advising Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies to “blood money” from drug traffickers. Yet, pharma continues to be aligned with MBA spreadsheet consulting.
Gadget firms — starting with Apple and now Fitbit, which Google owns — are selling wearable devices that check heartbeat rhythms and alert users when something is out of sync, according to KHN.com. Although the gadgets are a technical achievement, some cardiologists say the information the devices produce isn’t always helpful. Notifications from the devices aren’t definitive diagnoses.
The value of health literacy extends far beyond the boundaries of COVID-19. Education leads to fact-based empowerment, and an educated healthcare consumer can be a potent change agent. Poor health literacy is one of the reasons why life expectancy is lower in Republican-led states, and the problem has been growing worse for decades. The highest rates for covid-19 deaths and murders are found mainly in red states.