Pfizer takes a leaf out of Facebook

[JohnMack]

Source: FT.com

By Christopher Bowe in New York

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) will on Monday lead Big Pharma into internet-based social networking, as the world's biggest drugmaker unveils a collaboration with Sermo, the fast-growing US networking site for doctors.

Sermo and Pfizer will work together to establish how drugmakers can best communicate with physicians online, and provide drug and disease information to them on-demand.

The collaboration signals an important move by the business community to tap into the online networking craze exemplified by the success of websites such as Facebook and MySpace.

Sermo, launched in September last year, counts 30,000 US physicians as members, and is adding 2,000 a week. It charges no sign-up fee and gives doctors a network to discuss their medical cases or problems and post personal information.

The service, currently focused on the US, expects to launch elsewhere next year. Its business model is based on packaging and selling the data it holds on the medical community to financial services groups, regulators and researchers.

Dr Daniel Palestrant, founder and chief executive, said that the no-advertising, business-to-business model was necessary to make Sermo credible to those doctors wary of any conflicts of interest.

"In my mind, I saw advertising and credibility as mutually exclusive to doctors," he said. "Pfizer is going to be working with [the] Sermo community to build guidelines on how the community wants to interact with it. Doctors can now say: 'This is what we want'."

Pfizer's move to piggyback on the site shows Sermo's potential for drugmakers to change how they talk to doctors. Other big pharmaceutical rivals are expected to follow suit in the next few months.

Complaints about the high cost and inefficiencies of drugmakers' relationships with doctors have long been a refrain in the industry. Drugmakers have been looking for the right technology to change this.

The pressure on Pfizer to find new areas of growth have forced Jeff Kindler, its chief executive, to explore new methods.

Dr Michael Berelowitz, Pfizer's global medical executive, said: "The way the internet and other web-based media have transformed life is unprecedented. But it offers such advantages that we'd like to be part of that evolution."

[JohnMack]

Source: Sermo

Pfizer Engages With Nation’s Physicians Through Sermo To Improve Patient Care
Company Aims To Open Information Exchange with Doctors through Unique Online Collaboration

New York and Cambridge, Mass., October 15, 2007 — Pfizer Inc and Sermo, the nation’s largest online physician community, today announced a strategic collaboration designed to redefine the way physicians in the U.S. and the healthcare industry work together to improve patient care. Sermo is a Web-based community where physicians share observations from daily practice, discuss emerging trends and provide new insights into medications, devices and treatments.

Through this collaboration, Sermo’s community of physicians will have access to Pfizer’s clinical content in tangible ways that allow for the transparent and efficient exchange of knowledge. With access to the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on Pfizer products, physicians will be able to find the data they need, when they need it, to make informed decisions.

“This collaboration reflects Pfizer’s commitment to engaging in peer-to-peer medical dialogue with physicians to better meet our mutual goal of delivering the best care to patients,” said Michael Berelowitz, MD, Senior Vice President of Global Medical and New York Site Head of Worldwide Development for Pfizer. “Sermo’s state of the art technology has the potential to greatly improve our ability to provide physicians with timely and accurate information they want about our medicines and clinical data.”

Pfizer, working together with Sermo’s physician community and other Sermo partners, plans to pursue a number of key objectives through this collaboration, including:

* Discover, with physicians, how best to transform the way medical information is exchanged in the fast-moving social media environment

* Create an open and transparent discussion with physicians through the innovative channel offered by online exchange

* Engage with the FDA to define guidelines for the use of social media in communications with healthcare professionals

* Work with physicians to develop a productive exchange between pharmaceutical professionals and the Sermo community

“Sermo has quickly become a powerful voice in the U.S. and physicians want that voice to be heard by parties best positioned to take action,” said Daniel Palestrant, MD, CEO of Sermo. “Our physician community has asked Sermo to find new ways to work closer with industry, building on our work with the American Medical Association and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Pfizer has chosen to assume a leadership role and find common ground with physicians in this environment built on trust and defined by transparency.”

Pfizer Inc: Working for a healthier world™
Founded in 1849, Pfizer is the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company taking new approaches to better health. We discover, develop, manufacture and deliver quality, safe and effective prescription medicines to treat and help prevent disease for both people and animals. We also partner with healthcare providers, governments and local communities around the world to expand access to our medicines and to provide better quality health care and health system support. At Pfizer, more than 90,000 colleagues in more than 90 countries work every day to help people stay happier and healthier longer and to reduce the human and economic burden of disease worldwide.

Sermo
Launched in September 2006, Sermo is already the largest online physician community in the US, with more than 30,000 physician members and growing by 2,000 physicians each week. On Sermo, physicians exchange knowledge with each other and gain potentially life saving insights directly from colleagues, instead of waiting to read about them in conventional media sources. Sermo harnesses the power of collective wisdom and enables physicians to discuss new clinical findings, report unusual events, and work together to improve patient care. Through its unique business model, Sermo is free to physicians and has no advertising or promotion.

Pfizer Contact:
Huw Gilbert
P: 212-733-8926
E: huw.gilbert@pfizer.com

Press Contact:
Claire Spina-Russell
PerkettPR for Sermo
P: 781-842-3381
E: sermo@perkettpr.com

[JohnMack]

Source: Wall Street Journal

By AVERY JOHNSON

A new Pfizer Inc. partnership with a doctors' Web site could attract fresh attention to how drug companies interact with physicians.

The New York pharmaceuticals maker will announce a partnership today with Sermo Inc., a social-networking site for licensed physicians. Facing financial pressures as some of its best-selling products lose patent protection, Pfizer is looking for more-efficient ways to reach the doctors who prescribe its medicines. Under the arrangement, Pfizer-affiliated doctors will be able to talk candidly with the site's 31,000 members, potentially giving the company insights into prescribing patterns and a way to show doctors data on its drugs.

It is risky territory for Pfizer, though. The drug industry's interactions with doctors are highly scrutinized by regulators and lawmakers for signs that they are offering financial incentives to drive sales or promoting their drugs for unapproved uses. Pfizer plans to discuss the partnership with the Food and Drug Administration.

Many doctors, too, are wary of undue industry influence on their profession. "Often it's looked badly upon by other physicians when you are perceived to have a close relationship with a drug company," says Sermo member Richard Thrasher, an ear-nose-and-throat specialist from McKinney, Texas, who generally welcomes Pfizer to the site.

Sermo, founded in September 2006 in Cambridge, Mass., provides a forum for doctors to seek diagnostic advice from peers. The site earns money by letting clients such as hedge funds monitor doctors' anonymous conversations and thus gain insight into, say, the popularity of certain treatments. Sermo rewards physicians whose input is highly ranked by other members and soon will offer to pay doctors for participating in its clients' surveys.
Avery Johnson discusses how Pfizer plans to reach more physicians through a social networking site, instead of sending sales reps to doctors' offices.

Pfizer has historically fielded the industry's most aggressive sales force, but laid off 20% of its U.S. sales force last year and more than 20% of its European sales team in January.

Pfizer doctors, who will be clearly identified, will be able to ask questions of the Sermo community or respond to posts. If Pfizer doctors were to offer comments others deem biased, the system provides for quick rebuttals.

Sermo chief executive Daniel Palestrant says he initially didn't want to involve drug companies, but changed his mind when physicians on the site started asking for the industry to communicate with them in a medium more convenient than sending sales people to their offices. "It takes a lot of courage for Pfizer to do this, because the response isn't going to be universally positive," Dr. Palestrant says. "Pharma is always in crisis, always under fire for something, and there have been trust issues with physicians."

Michael Berelowitz, Pfizer's senior vice president for global medical, says the company wants to communicate more openly, despite the risk. "We live in an environment where we're closely monitored all the time and have constraints around what we say and how we say it," he says. "Given that this kind of medium is the way forward...we have to learn how to behave in it."

Neither company would disclose financial terms of the agreement.

Write to Avery Johnson at avery.johnson@WSJ.com