BrandweekNRX

Remicade’s Hollywood Moment Gets Rocky

Looks like I was the only reporter who had something good to say about J&J’s new Remicade marketing effort. The promotion takes the form of a series of documentary screenings followed by discussion about psoriasis, Crohn’s disease and arthritis. The LAT didn't like it. Much more interesting is this item from Minneapolis: Two drug reps claim they were fired by J&J/Centocor because they criticized the company’s allegedly off-label marketing.

Media Engages in More Pfizer-Bashing

The WSJ wades in with a story that will depress the folks on 42nd Street. After promising to restrict its ED advertising to relevant audiences, and to keep its advertising educational, the paper finds a spot which aired “during ‘Prancer,’ a G-rated movie about a young girl who nurses one of Santa's reindeers back to health.” Also on the hotseat, a not very educational ad in which a flirty woman seduces a man to leave the sofa where he’s watching sports on TV. The WSJ also picks up the Viagra-causes-Aids controversy, which you read earlier here and here and here. I’ll say it again: If Pfizer does not rein itself in it will end up becoming the poster boy of those who want to reform drug marketing.

Lilly Reps: Your Jobs Are Safe!

This article makes it look like Lilly is going alone in its promise not to trim the rep count at a time when other companies have made loud proclamations about getting rid of reps. But if you look closely, you’ll see that its product line has “tripled.” Thus, on their own numbers, their rep army has actually decreased. However, there are reasons to be skeptical when companies promise to do away with reps, and you can go over them here. One reason why reps are so hard to cut: They're one of the few peices of the marketing arm that can actually link their activitiy to NRXs.

J&J Gets Into the Movie Business for Remicade

How do you market your drug when your DTC ad budget has been axed? Make a movie, the folks on Remicade at J&J say. Why this is interesting: It shows that some pharma companies are willing to go beyond the usual drug rep-DTC-web site mix and experiment with nontraditional media the way regular marketers do. Notice how the J&J movie promo has all the ingredients of good drug marketing: It's largely educational, there's plenty of discussion, and the three conditions picked out in the movie are all broadly on-label so no one can complain about it. Is it any coincidence that this effort came out of J&J, which is better known as a consumer products giant than a pharma co.? And now that J&J owns Pfizer's old consumer products business, expect to see all types of interesting new tactics emerge. J&J has not been shy about insisting that its marketers break new ground.

Judge Rules NYT Conspired With Drug Lawyers to Get Secret Zyprexa Docs

Wow. It’s official: Alex Berenson is “reprehensible,” according to a ruling by the judge in the Zyprexa leaked documents case. I previously expressed sympathy for Berenson here. The ruling indicates that when Berenson found his reporting frustrated by a sealing order, he introduced an expert witness in the case to a plaintiffs’ lawyer in Alaska who was litigating an unrelated matter. The Alaska lawyer then sent a baseless subpoena for documents in the Zyprexa case, and the subpoena was fulfilled. The documents were then leaked immediately to Berenson. Until this point, Berenson’s reporting on pharma and other businesses had been regarded as excellent, although he has made enemies. But I can already tell this episode is going to make all us drug journalists look bad—in just the same way as the Judy Miller fiasco triggered a wave of tedious conversations with my sources about just how “off the record” off the record is. (And yes, I know I'm not reporting on national security, but these things have ripple effects that really screw things up for the rest of us). Berenson and the Times declined to give their side of the case. One suspects it is complicated.

Wall Street Looks Askance at Sepracor and Lunesta

Last October, Brandweek anointed two executives at Sepracor as our Marketers of the Year in the drug biz. Since then, things have gotten a little rocky at the company that spends $300 million a year on DTC ads. Their top DTC guy left recently. And today, stock analysts Friedman Billings Ramsey initiated coverage of the company with a sour note: “Sepracor's lead top-line driver Lunesta faces the entrance of generic Ambien in April 2007, and we believe that Sepracor's 2007 guidance of $685 million (21% annual growth) may be tough to achieve…. With Lunesta facing difficult market dynamics and Xopenex UDV [another Sepracor drug] facing reimbursement risk, we would remain on the sidelines.” Ouch! The folks over at Merrill Lynch are similarly unexcited about Sepracor and Lunesta. They estimate TRX and NRX are both flat at 11.1% and 11.6% share, respectively. It’s been that way for a long while, I can tell you.

Right on Schedule: Seroquel Off-Label Allegations

On Feb. 6 I noted that there were already suspicions that AstraZeneca was prepping the ground for off-label promotion of its anti-psychotic, Seroquel. Lo and behold, the company is indeed being sued for off-label marketing in 1,200 suits filed in the U.S. For the record, the company says it believes the suits have no merit and that the allegations contain no proof of harm to patients. Another interesting angle is how impervious large pharma companies are to the legal system: Even if AZ settled for $500 million with all plaintiffs it “wouldn't harm AstraZeneca financially, because it would be ‘a one-off charge,’” according to one analyst quoted here. (Read the anonymous blogger at ClinPsyc enjoying his Stephen Colbert-style “I called it!” moment here).

Today's Items Courtesy Of ...

It seems only fair to mention that I initially discovered the material for both of today's posts on Internet Drug News, which you can access here.

Lunches for Doctors Under Attack Again

More headaches for drug sales reps: Pew Charitable Trusts has given $6 million to fund a campaign urging doctors to stop taking free meals from drug companies. The free food looks like a prescription bribe, say some. Best quote in the story: free lunches “may raise the question whether the decisions are based on the best scientific evidence about medication or whether or not those Sichuan shrimp have something to do with the prescribing patterns,” says a Pew rep.

More Bad News for Sanofi’s Acomplia

A few weeks ago I placed a call to Sanofi-Aventis to ask for a briefing on Acomplia, the company’s anti-obesity pill. They didn’t return my call. Note to pharma pr people: maintaining silence on a subject is generally regarded by journalists as a signal that you’re in trouble on that issue, fair or not. Sanofi, I’d love to hear from you! In terms of prescription products with vanity applications, Acomplia is the most eagerly awaited since Pfizer’s Viagra or Allergan’s Botox. Sanofi thinks it can make $3 billion a year on the drug. But more recently, the emphasis has been on the ‘waiting,’ rather than the ‘eagerly.’ We learned Monday that the FDA wants to take another three months to consider Acomplia’s approval. This is the latest in a string of setbacks for Acomplia, including a possible name change (Zimulti?) and an extremely limited approval in France, Sanofi’s home territory. A super-secret source of mine with some knowledge of the Acomplia situation indicates that history should be our guide when it comes to anti-fat pills: Thus far, miracle cures (Xenical, Alli, TrimSpa, etc.) have had only modest results because they tend to not work as dramatically as patients hope and they are weighed down with unpleasant side effects like nausea.