A quick look

February 20, 2009 – 3:11 pm

This will be a relatively short post this week, as it was a relatively short week because of the President’s Day holiday. Also, there’s more layout on my desk and I’ve been wrapping up processing visuals for the Manny Awards and the April issue of Med Ad News (thankfully, I’m finally at the point where I don’t get a feeling of despair when another stack of FedEx envelopes gets dropped on my desk - with the exception of a few, most agencies have their creative in). But enough of my whining, on to the show …

In the news this morning was yesterday’s move by the U.S. Justice Department to join whistleblower suits against J&J. Jacob Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports. He also explains what progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy is, in light of FDA’s safety warnings about Genentech’s Raptiva; how Roche got $16 billion to fuel its Genentech bid; and who is Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and what kind of HHS secretary she could be;

Also at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, Shirley S. Wang looks at the New England Medical Journal’s writeup on how to get clinical trials back in the United States; and Sarah Rubenstein writes about how Merck is trying to keep Singulair from going generic, how Warren Buffett reduced his stakes in Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, that Howard Dean is a longshot for HHS secretary, and explains that not many kids are candidates for cholesterol drugs.

The InVivo Blog, Michael McCaughan says the thought of Gov. Sebelius as HHS secretary might spark a fight due to her pro-choice stance.

Condor at Shearling’s Got Plowed gives us the full text of the letter from Rep. Henry Waxman and Rep. Bart Stupak to Schering-Plough and Merck that requested more information on how the Vytorin SEAS trial was conducted. “This is very significant – that with all the other issues the nation is facing – the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is going to actively pursue Schering’s Vytorin vindication studies,” Condor says. “Ouch.”

John Mack at the Pharma Marketing Blog, riffing off of CNBC’s John Huckman’s Pharma’s Market Blog, looks at Amgen’s cycling fashion sense. (And seriously, Amgen shouldn’t have put red blood cells on the shirt in the first place, as Neulasta stimulates white blood cells, which look like this.)

Mr. Mack also comments on creature-free DTC.

Richard Meyer at World of DTC Marketing says now is not the time to cut advertising budgets. He also looks at the buzz that shaped Byetta’s rise and fall. “There are some lessons to be learned here but will pharma learn and move on or let Byetta sales decline to the point where it could be withdrawn from the market?” Mr. Meyers wonders. “Byetta could have been a contender in the diabetes market but the buzz around serious side effects has more steam than the facts. In the information age that is something we all have to guard against because a little flame can become a big fire in a very short time. Pharma has to be ready to respond with a deluge of water when they see a flame starting and for this reason it’s essential for them to monitor threats all time and respond quickly.”

Here’s two opposing viewpoints: As Peter Pitts and Dr. Robert Goldberg from DrugWonks repeatedly decry the Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness, Dr. Howard Brody at Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma says an old scare tactic is abroad in the land.

At Furious Seasons, Philip Dawdy says the future of psychiatry looks spooky. He also points out a statement from a Tufts University researcher that doctors have been using antidepressants incorrectly and excessively.

At the R&D Directions Insider blog, Colette Pilkus looks at how llamas are being used in medical research.

This is not pharma-related, but it is a lesson in the dark side of social media and how powerful Anonymous can be. A 14-year-old kid who uploaded videos to YouTube of himself abusing his cat got arrested after the denizens of /b/ got outraged, tracked him down through cyberspace, and reported him to the local sheriff. Any corporation that wants to engage in social media should know about, and be wary of, Anonymous. I’ll quote Encyclopedia Dramatica’s definition here: “Starting as an in-joke itself, ‘Anonymous’ is the name assigned to a poster who does not enter text in the [Name] field on chan imageboards. Anonymous is not a single person, but rather, represents the collective whole of the internet. As individuals, they can be intelligent, rational, emotional and empathetic. As a mass, a group, they are devoid of humanity and mercy … Anonymous are the Monsters from the Id.” Although I doubt any of pharma’s “misdeeds” will come to the attention of Anonymous, let alone stir Anonymous into unified, search-and-destroy action, neither do I rule the possibility out. You shouldn’t, either. Recall just a few months ago when DrugWonks was continually hacked - that was a tentacle of Anonymous reaching out, I believe. And when Anonymous hits you, it’s hard to fight back, as the Epilepsy Foundation discovered.

So be careful, as you paddle around the sunlit areas of the Internet. Even in the shallows, there can be sharks.