Holiday break …

August 28, 2008 – 12:41 pm

Many apologies to the loyal Pharma Blog Review readers (especially the nice professor from Drexel University who called me yesterday). Today my staff and I are frantically trying to get a large chunk of the September issue of Med Ad News (focusing on the top 50 pharma companies) out the door. We’re off for four days for the Labor Day holiday, starting tomorrow. We’ve spent August writing, reading, and writing some more. I’ve had little opportunity this week to look at my usual blogs. Today I thought I’d do something a little bit different; a review of my favorite blogs and why I always go to them. This will be by no means a comprehensive list of what I read, but it should be a good condensed one. So without more delay, I present some of my favorite pharma blogs, in no particular order.

1. Ed Silverman’s Pharmalot He’s got the scoop on everything; a tireless scanner of publications from all over the world, Mr. Silverman posts breaking news, reviews of hot issues, and interviews, among many other things. He’s a one-man wire service when it comes to the pharma industry.

2. The Wall Street Journal Health Blog Editor Scott Hensley and reporter Jacob Goldstein, plus others from the Wall Street Journal staff, offer up quality writing on healthcare topics. Like Pharmalot, the Health Blog will pick up on the big pharma industry news of the day, but Mr. Hensley and Mr. Goldstein also like to cover topics such as health insurance, nursing home issues, and hospital issues.

3. John Mack’s Pharma Marketing Blog: Mr. Mack is a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and has his own newsletter, Pharma Marketing News, which focuses on DTC and other kinds of patient marketing. In his blog, he lets his opinions out for an often-entertaining, always informative rampage. And he’s really good at picking up the trends and spelling them out for readers, like this post on how Lilly is using certain studies to make a path for future Cymbalta indications. He vociferously claims NOT to be a reporter, but he’s doing what good reporters have always done: keeps his ear to the street and tells his readers what’s going on.

4. Jim Edwards’ NRx I had been a loyal reader of the BrandWeek NRx blog while Mr. Edwards was doing it, and then he went away to Columbia University on a fellowship. Now he’s back, blogging again about the pharmaceutical industry, with the goal of analyzing stories the mainstream media has not paid much attention to. This week, he turns his eye to why Wyeth’s “Project Impact” is not really having an impact on the bottom line.

5. The Carlat Psychiatry Blog Dr. Daniel Carlat is the man CME providers love to hate. He’s on a crusade to get the commercial sponsorship element taken out of CME. Does he have a bias? Sure! He has his own CME publication, The Carlat Psychiatry Report (which he does not accept industry sponsorship for). As he explains, “Here are the differences: The Report is a peer-reviewed, non-industry biased, CME publication. The Blog is not peer-reviewed, is not ACCME-accredited, and is definitely very biased. My opinion, formed as a result of participating in many CME activities, is that allowing pharmaceutical companies to sponsor accredited medical education leads to many bad things, including biased education, corrupt physicians, and, ultimately, harm to our patients.”

6. DrugWonks When not resorting to insults of pharma industry critics, Peter Pitts and Dr. Robert Goldberg can provide some interesting commentary on issues such as healthcare insurance reform, the importance of FDA’s Critical Path, and pharmaceutical industry transparency. Like Dr. Carlat, they have their own biases (both of them have deep ties to the pharma industry), but if you want the whole picture, you have to read DrugWonks. The items there are often thought-provoking, such as Dr. Goldberg’s post this week about Stanford’s CME restrictions and what would have happened if Louis Pasteur could not have had his research directly funded by the beer and wine industry.

7. Policy and Medicine Thomas Sullivan is the anti-Carlat. The president and founder of the CME firm Rockpointe Communications, Mr. Sullivan is not about to let his industry go down without a fight, and he has a lot of points to make, such as this line-for-line response to JAMA’s article about the history of continuing medical education. Whether you agree with him or with Dr. Carlat, to get a balanced opinion, you have to read both.

8. Eye on FDA Mark Senak of Fleischmann Hillard Communications blogs about FDA actions and how the pharmaceutical industry is struggling with electronic communication mediums such as YouTube. This week, among other things, he pointed out how Lilly launched its own YouTube channel, and then shut it down.

9. Hooked: Medicine, Ethics, and Pharma Dr. Howard Brody is no friend of pharmaceutical industry practices. After all, he did write “Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry.” Again, for all of his biases, he has a lot of interesting points to make.

10. Health Care Renewal Dr. Roy M. Poses and Dr. Scot M. Silverstein do most of the posting here, with occasional contributions from others. Dr. Poses is a practicing physician in Masschusetts who has written about pharmaceutical marketing topics at Medscape; Dr. Silverstein is at Drexel University’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, where he specializes in healthcare informatics.

11. Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Blogger Sunil Chiplunkar is a pharma marketing professional based in Bangalore, India. For a look at marketing practices in another area of the word, Mr. Chiplunkar provides valuable information, such as this post about the vaccines business in India.

12. In the Pipeline Dr. Derek Lowe not only writes entertaining and informative commentary about what happens when a pharma development project hits a wall; he even explains the science in a way that non-scientists can understand it with a minimum of effort. Plus, his series of posts on How Not to Do It, on various lab gaffes, show that scientists are human too (and give you some things to make grad school acquaintances laugh - exploding solvent stills, anyone?).

13. The InVIVO Blog From the gang over at Windhover Information, this blog comments on pharmaceutical business deal-making, marketing, and development issues.

14. DTC-In-Perspective Bob Ehrlich, chairman of DTC Perspectives, writes about DTC advertising issues with his deep understanding of the DTC industry. He’s critical when he has to be, and always tries to offer constructive information.

15. World of DTC Marketing Rich Meyer, an independent consultant, gives us the ground-eye view of DTC advertising and marketing. He’s especially enthusiastic about how pharma should, and has not been, really been getting online.

16. PharmaGossip The anonymous “Jack Friday” of the United Kingdom holds up Alice’s looking-glass and lets us fall down the rabbit hole of the pharmaceutical industry. Besides news items, he often posts cool music videos and very pithy “LOLcats”-type illustrations, such as this one for the Lilly-Byetta troubles story (FYI, Byetta is based on the enzymes of Gila monster spit).

17. The Pharma Law Blog Former Pfizer whistleblower Dr. Peter Rost continues blogging, but seems to have lost some steam. Still, you never know when he’ll bring to light another scandal. And now that he’s working as an expert for plaintiffs’ lawyers in pharmaceutical industry cases, maybe he’ll get a bit more to talk about.

18. Paul’s Poz Blog This blog addresses topics on the fight against HIV and AIDS, by Paul Dalton. There is also Peter’s Poz Blog, by Peter Staley, founder and advisory editor, AIDSmeds.com.

19. Patent Baristas Lawyer Stephen Albainy-Jenei is the editor, and the blog “is an intellectual property news and commentary site featuring freshly brewed chat on patent and IP issues in the biosciences.” The legal language can get a little thick (after all, it is a law blog), but the summaries of actions in the industry can be informative.

20. RNAi Therapeutics I just found out about this blog, but since the pharma industry has gone full-tilt gonzo into investing in RNAi therapeutics, it’s an important one to look at. The blog is written by Dirk Haussecker, a post-doc at Stanford University. “I have been involved in RNAi-related research for over 5 years and am excited about the therapeutic prospects of this technology,” he says.

21. Shearling’s Got Plowed Written by the person called “Condor,” this blog focuses on the perceived antics of Schering-Plough.

22. Drug and Device Law Blog Lawyers Jim Beck and Mark Herrmann give “personal views of various topics that arise in the defense of pharmaceutical and medical device product liability litigation.”

23. Pathophilia Dr. Barbara Martin addresses various medical and educational topics, including CME.

24. Postscript, A Blog by the Prescription Project Yes, it has an anti-pharma-industry bias, but the blog does a pretty good job of rounding up information about some recent industry issues.

25. Merrill Goozner’s GoozNews This is a veteran journalist’s take on the pharmaceutical marketing and healthcare industries. And like journalists of yesterday, he is on a crusade. Big Pharma, watch out!