KEY IDEA: As the money continues to flow into digital health start-ups there is a vast disconnect between what consumers want and what Silicon Valley thinks they want.
Continue readingDigital health unicorns
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Category Archives: As I See It
Symptom of bad pharma-Consulting Companies
- McKinsey had built itself into the world’s most influential consultancy.
- As a consulting company, it wasn’t regulated.
- The Massachusetts attorney general has accused McKinsey of fanning the flames of the opioid epidemic.
- McKinsey had instructed the maker of a powerful opioid on how to “turbocharge sales” of the drug, how to counter efforts by drug enforcement agents to reduce opioid use and how to “counter the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed” on the drug.
Insurers pushing back against “me too” drugs
- According to Reuters, a small little-known group of experts who advise U.S. health insurers on new drugs says that none of the three new migraine drugs offers a clear benefit over drugs already on the market, suggesting that they could consider them for optional coverage (which would limit their use).
- Insurers have also signaled that a lot of the new immunotherapy cancer drugs may also face significant hurdles unless they show a clear benefit of drugs
lredy on the market.
Are we too critical of pharma?
IN SUMMARY: I have been critical of big pharma because they keep their loyalty to Wall Street instead of patients. When the really good people within the industry learn to take risks and be heard the industry might change.
Continue readingBrilinta takes direct aim at Plavix
IN SUMMARY: Brilinta is taking on Plavix in the market for blood thinners and AZ is getting aggressive in trying to get patients to switch. The website for Brilinta is well done but one can’t help but wonder if why it has to look like a page out of a medical journal rather than a consumer branded site.
Continue readingThe pharma pessimist
IN SUMMARY: Peccisism; a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or confidence in the future. When it comes to pharma that pretty much describes me. In my 20+ years in healthcare marketing, I have seen a transformation from an industry focused on patients to an industry focused on profits.
Continue readingPatients should no even think of using Facebook for health
- Facebook’s leaders seriously discussed selling access to user data — and privacy was an afterthought.
- Mark Zuckerberg oversaw plans to consolidate the social network’s power and control competitors by treating its users’ data as a bargaining chip, while publicly proclaiming to be protecting that data.
- Facebook ultimately decided not to sell the data directly but rather to dole it out to app developers who were considered personal “friends” of Zuckerberg or who spent money on Facebook and shared their own valuable data.