TrueParallel’s president, Mark Rosenberg, started with saying, “Thanks.” It certainly struck a chord with me, and as I listened to his presentation at Innovation in RTP last Wednesday (August 10th), I realized it was just another example of how Mark doesn’t always follow convention when it comes to doing business.
Mark sat down with us before his presentation to talk about what TrueParallel does and about his presentation at Innovation in RTP:
During his talk, Mark focused on discussing various market shifts and the new center of digital strategies. According to Mark, even with an aggressive digital initiative, it’s important to be aware of the impact that users have on the web process and how that must be incorporated into an overall strategy. He reminded us that the customer’s voice is loud and clear from anywhere on Earth these days and that feedback and information exchange is instantaneous. Because of this, it’s likely that change must also happen almost immediately. Read more »
Two and a half years ago, I was wrapping up my freshman year at UNC-Chapel Hill as a journalism and communications major. It had been a huge year for me and for the community at large: we prepared ourselves for another Great Depression, we weathered a historic presidential election, and somewhere in there I think we won a national championship in basketball. Myself, I was trying to discover my niche and where my passion for storytelling was best suited. After covering politics for the Daily Tar Heel and not finding the enlightenment I was hoping for, I joined a team of ad hoc science bloggers called Science in the Triangle (SITT). Our goal was to create a one-stop shop for all things tech- and science-related within the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and RTP.
As I was still trying to figure out this “being a reporter” thing—let alone the principles of molecular biology and bioengineering—we began to make a push for “new” or “social” media. I didn’t know what that meant, either. Like…Facebook? A place where I list what bands I like and post inside jokes to my friends? I had just gotten a Twitter, as well, and gathered it to be a place where people would blab about what grocery store they were at or what they thought of Dancing with the Stars. I was skeptical of the business or news potential in these websites, to say the least. Read more »
For 25 years, Liz Cermak worked for Johnson & Johnson, one the biggest names in the pharmaceutical business. Now, she works for one of the smallest. And she says in terms of marketing, it’s giving the Goliaths a run for their money.
Liz Pozen, Executive VP of POZEN, Inc.
Cermak is the executive vice president of POZEN, Inc., a Chapel Hill-based pharma developer/manufacturer with no more than 30 employees. Since coming onboard in 2009, she has overseen the company attain FDA approval on two authentic combination drugs: Treximet and VIMOVO—for migraines and osteoarthritis, respectively. No small feat, even by J&J standards.
But what Cermak is most excited about is POZEN’s fresh and unique approach to pharmaceutical marketing.
Instead of sending sales representatives to hospitals and doctors’ offices to promote their products, Cermak and her team pitch most their medicines online.
“The reality is that the current sales rep model of traditional pharma is obsolete,” Cermak said to a packed house at the Marketing Mondays series held at The Research Triangle Park HQ earlier this week. “Eighty-six percent of US doctors go online for product info now, and 82 percent are on smart phones.”
In-person sales pitching can be inefficient, she said, because all health care workers are overbooked and overbusy, and representatives must endure a costly wait just to get two minutes in with the doctor.
Two minutes. That’s the average rep-doc face time. But online, the average time spent by a physician on a single ePromotion activity is eighteen minutes.
Cermak has three rules for digital pharma marketing:
1. Develop products that deliver real value to customers.
Be relevant and learn from your customers. Understand their needs and study their e-behavior. Most pharmaceutical companies need to broaden their apertures here, she said.
2. Make them affordable and accessible.
Sermo.com helps physicians connect and share medical findings
POZEN recognizes the strains today’s pharmaceutical pricing puts on doctors and patients today alike. As should go without saying, costs must be kept low to compete and to demonstrate a respect for your consumers.
3. Engage with customers in a meaningful but highly efficient way.
This means using social media and online public networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, but also more exclusive, MD-only communities like Sermo or CogNet. Use push and pull marketing tactics; see what works and what doesn’t.
Cermak calls this “Pharma 3.0”.
“The change isn’t coming,” she said. “It’s here.”
We’ve seen this before with other industries, as well. Amazon now sells more books for the Kindle than it does in print, and Netflix’s superior, customer-based business model has Blockbusters closing up shop around the country. The global economy is now decidedly digitalized and will only continue to shift that way.
Treximet combines sumatriptan and naproxen sodium to relieve acute migraines.
Now, as POZEN enters the final testing and approval phase for its latest development, an ulcer-reducing aspirin compound dubbed PA32540, a viral campaign is already underway to spread the word.
Cermak stressed there is still utility in face-to-face interaction, though. Sending sales reps is important to explaining drug principles to doctors, learning about clinic demographics, and building a personal rapport with primary care physicians. However, there are not enough reps to go around as it is now, and focusing sales online will drastically cut down their jampacked schedules.
The biggest advice Cermak has for pharma companies looking to try this new approach is to not be afraid to experiment. To take risks. And to lose.
“Be ready to try and fail,” she said. “Absolute ROI of a given digital initiative cannot be accomplished with a high degree of certainty.”
No one expected it to work out for POZEN. But no one expected 30 people from Chapel Hill to get two drugs FDA-approved in two years, either.
Most people are aware The Research Triangle Park (RTP) and the Triangle region in general has a plethora of science and technology related companies, people, and activities. Images of lab coats, techie start-ups, and research universities abound. But, innovation and science doesn’t operate in a silo, and it takes more than a test tube and a fume hood to create a successful research firm.
When you think of the support organizations needed to nurture the region’s innovation, thoughts of venture capital firms, incubator space, and professional service firms come to mind. However, as we were reminded last week at the annual ScienceOnline event, the RTP region is also a landing ground for science communicators, journalists, and bloggers who support and market the scientific community to the world.
As the members of this journalist community continue to expand, we are also witnessing the demise of print media outlets nationwide. This becomes a contradiction of sorts, and every journalist across the nation has their own hard-luck story. However, the fall of print journalism also presents communicators with the opportunity to jump on a whole new set of social media/Web 2.0 based tools to harness their efforts and expand their audience.
Which brings me to a list of five innovative ways our RTP science communicators are reinventing the nature of journalism right here at home:
1. Conferences, unconferences, and online collaboration. The recent ScienceOnline event is a testimony to the strength of organic gatherings as a way for science communicators to learn, share and collaborate with their peers.
2. Science in the Triangle. Science in the Triangle is an evolving experiment in community science journalism and scientific-community organizing. Launched online in April 2008, Science in the Triangle informs research park companies and employees about the advancements their neighbors are making through the internet and new media tools.
3. Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC). SCONC is a professional organization founded in April 2007 providing fellowship and networking among communicators who bring science to the public. The organization includes science writers, journalists, public information officers, teachers and institutional communicators from academia, government labs, industry, museums and schools — just about anyone interested in communicating science. SCONC President Ernie Hood also runs a stellar radio show highlighting interviews with science leaders from the region.
4. Networking2.0. Communicators are taking interest in innovation-based events like never before with the benefit of creating connections and networking their way to the science scoop. The Triangle Area Research Directors Council (TARDC), Innovation in RTP, and American Scientist Pizza Lunch are just starters in a line-up of interesting programs being covered by freelance journalists across the region.
5. Blogs, blogs and more blogs. Traditional print media presented journalists with a number of challenges, not limited to scope and speed to market. With the access to online tools such as blogs, journalists now literally have the world as an audience at their fingertips. Some of our favorite blogs to follow:
Wednesday, December 9th, Alan Pascoe of NC-based Tekelec delievered a presentation on how SMS (short message service) can be incorporated by businesses as a more cost-effective way of communication. The presentation was for the Innovation in RTP series.
Alan covered how all forms of industry have started to use an SMS system. Whether it is financial companies excepting payment, or a soda machine telling its producer that it is empty, texting has become an all-around, efficient form of communication.
For more information and video links to the event, click here.
Last week’s Social Media Business Forum event in Durham demonstrated the importance the Research Triangle region continues to play in the social media landscape. The event was an amazing brand extension for the Triangle as a place to learn and engage with social media tools and key players. Considered a great success, the Forum attracted 200 bloggers, social media experts, marketing professionals, developers and more.
Some highlights from the event:
Topics are broken out with time stamps in this video of the business blogging best practices session http://ow.ly/x8ne
Twitter: It’s Not Just A Micro-Blog presentation by Laura Fitton, author of “Twitter for Dummies” @Pistachio
