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Pharma and Device Blog Watch

December 26, 2007

As Marketing Budgets Shrink, Web Analytics Become More Important (World of DTC Marketing)
In the coming years, direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing budgets are going to shrink, requiring marketers to become more resourceful when it comes to looking at core metrics such as reach and frequency, Richard Meyer writes.

eMarketers will have to show that web DTC provides a positive return on investment (ROI), and web DTC teams will need emarketers who can look beyond the numbers to provide insight. “As more marketers laser in on return on investment, expect the value of firms such as Web Trends, CoreMetrics and Omniture … to rise,” Meyer says.

Marketers will be asked to do more with less due to the increased cost to bring drugs to market and bloated sales forces. “As we move away from a mass market mentality to mass personalization social marketing, model marketers will be demanding a more accurate picture on the ROI for the dollars they spend on the web,” according to the blog.

Smart marketing agencies are adding staff to interactive marketing areas who can report on numbers and add insight to make campaigns more effective and drive new prescriptions. “Time is the enemy now, and the quicker we can react the more money we can save and have available for more online programs,” Meyer writes.

In India, a War Between Drugmakers and Reps (Pharmalot)
The pharmaceutical industry is asking the government to withdraw recognition of sales representatives as “workmen,” which gives them the right to form trade unions, days after the representatives claimed employers were flouting government pricing norms, Ed Silverman writes.

The Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA) has asked Labor Minister Oscar Fernandes to declassify sales reps under the Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act of 1976. The Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India supports the IDMA’s move, according to The Business Standard.

“Considering medical representatives as workmen is an anachronism. The world over, a medical representative, by virtue of his job function, is considered part of the management team of the company,” IDMA Secretary General Dara Patel said.

The Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives of India recently called for a centralized working rule to prevent drugmakers from “exploiting” them, according to the blog. In Italy, Federisf, a union for sales reps, asked the government to respond to job cuts and outsourcing by cutting the prices paid to drugmakers, Silverman writes.