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 WE COULD BE MUCH WORSE, YOU KNOW

HERE’S AN OUT-OF-THE-BOX approach to DTC

advertising: place newspaper ads that convey themessage, ‘Our drug isn’t as awful as you think it is.’Pfizer, trying to save its smoking-cessation Tx

varenicline (Chantix) amid a firestorm of adverseevent reports, last week bought space in the fivelargest stateside dailies. The print campaign featuredan open letter from the company’s chief medicalofficer, which stressed the Rx’s efficacy and urged patients to discontinue therapy if psychiatric side-effects occur. The ads were the first wave of acomprehensive strategy to maintain the near-  blockbuster in the wake of widespread negative  publicity. Pfizer also mailed out 300,000 “Dear Doctor” letters to US physicians, and plans TV spotslater this summer. A company spokesman tells

Bloomberg news service: “When there is confusionin the marketplace related to one of our products wewant to make sure the right information is out there.We can’t lose sight of the benefit of this product, the

 public health benefit is clear.”

PHARMA’S CREDIBILITY GAP

CONSIDER THE SOURCE — and when the source

happens to be the pharmaceutical industry, theremay not be a heck of a lot of credibility attachedThat was the message received by the EuropeanCommission, which last week completed a round of

 public consultations on how medical information iconveyed to patients. The commission found payersand physicians were “mostly suspicious” of industry-supplied information, and recommended theestablishment of a monitoring authority to overseemedical communications in member nations. Thecommission also cautioned against the disseminationof trial data to the public before Rxs are approvedwriting: “Information about ongoing studies shall byno means be communicated to the public, as they arelikely to create massive uncertainty in patients.”

INCREDIBLE SHRINKING DRUGBIZ

MORE LIFE SCIENCES JOBS evaporated last week

with Pharmacopeia trimming 15 per cent of itswork force , and Favrille, a San Diego biotechieaxing 132 of its 144-person workforce. Favrillewhich is noodling out Ca Txs, also chopped six of itseight corner-office dwellers, after pulling the plugon its lead compound, Specifid, which showed poorPhase III results. Pharmacopeia, which is developinghypertension Rx candidate PS433540, says it wil“allocate a greater share of our resources towardsour later-stage programs.”   Meanwhile, a new

study by an HR consultancy finds redundant drugbizworkers tend to bounce back quickly. In recent interviews with 1,282 fired pharma employees, the USgroup Right Management found nearly three out offour landed new gigs at the same compensation leveor higher, while 84 per cent found work withouthaving to relocate. The most successful tactic usedin gaining a new job is networking, with 43 per centattributing their success to their network. Fifteen per

Issue #504 • Developments and Analysis in International Pharmaceutical Marketing for the week of 06.02.08Subscriptions: Cdn$190/year in North America; Cdn$295 elsewhere (plus GST).

Setting the weekly agenda for 1,100+ Canadian pharma marketers. Breaking news: www.pharmacongress.info

 PFIZER runs newspaper ads

reassuring Chantix really isn’t that bad 

 EUROPEAN HEARINGS find 

citizens just don’t believe the drugbiz 

 DON’T WORRY: So your job’s

 gone. You’ll find another, report says

 The Herpetic Syndrome

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cent located a job through the Internet, while 12 per cent found work through a headhunter. Only eight  per cent got jobs by applying directly to anorganization. Says consultant Lynn Brown: “Thesenumbers are strong. It shows that people do find jobs pretty easily in pharma.”

MERGERS-A-POPPIN’

ZYDUS CADILA, the number four Indian drugmaker,expanded into Spain last week with the purchase of generics outfit Laboratories Combix . The price wasnot disclosed. Combix markets 17 knock-offs in theEU. Says Zydus helmer Pankaj R. Patel: “This ac-quisition offers us an opportunity to consolidate our  presence as a generics company and global health-care provider. The Spanish generics market is fore-cast to grow rapidly during the coming years and weare pleased to participate in this growth.”

Elsewhere Japanese drugmaker Eisai last week sold$1.15 billion in bonds, to finance its recent acquis-ition of MGI Pharma. Bond financing is unusual inthe pharma industry, prompting a Tokyo analyst tocomment: “Drug companies haven’t sold many bonds. Pharmaceuticals is a high-risk business be-cause of the large research and development costs.”

NOTHING TO SMILE ABOUT

POOR DENTISTRY IN THE BRITISH ISLES has

 been a proud source of hilarity, at least in the AustinPowers film series. Last week an article published inthe  British Medical Journal demonstrated the less-amusing aspects of the situation, with serious and potentially fatal dental infections having doubled in

the UK during the past decade. The article notes that22 per cent of Britons declined dental treatment because of the high cost, while the number of adultsregistered with a National Health Service dentist fellto 17 million, from 23 million between 1994 and2004.

CORNER-OFFICE ROTISSERIE

BIOGEN IDEC last week tapped Hans Peter Hasler as

COO, where he`ll command business developmentand commercial operations. Hasler, who joinedBiogen from Wyeth seven years ago, was recently in

charge of the outfit`s global ops, and was vee-pee of neurology.  In other developments, GlaxoSmith-Kline last week named Roger Scarlett-Smith as  prexy of its North American consumer healthcareoperations. He ran the equivalent operations in theUK. He replaces George Quesnelle, who was app-ointed prexy of a new unit intended to convert brands from prescription to OTC status.

IT WAS A BIG WEEK FOR...

THIEVES who kidnapped a Novo Nordisk employee at

the company`s Værløse lab, and then stole what was

described as a `large quantity` of human growthhormones. Miscreants seem drawn to the company`swares. Sixty-thousand ampules of HGH were stolenin January, and four bikers connected to the aptly-named Bandidos club were convicted recently of att-empting to rob Novo of its hormones. The companysays it will bulk up its security, while Danish auth-orities are seeking three men distinguished bymisshapen crania and extremities, along lines o

Barry Bonds and Sylvester Stallone.

IT WAS A MUCH SMALLER WEEK FOR...

GERMAN CIVIL SERVANTS who have been re

ceiving treatment for erectile dysfunction. The Fed-eral Administrative Court in Leipzig reversed alower court decision made five years ago that bur-eaucrats are entitled to receive ED Txs as a formulary benefit.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I DON'T THINK THEY have a strong case to make

It's basically a me-too drug, and the company hasn'tdone the studies that would be required to reallydistinguish it.”—   Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, psychiatry

department chair at New York’s Columbia University medical school, commenting on paliperidone(Invega, Janssen), which was intended to supersederispiridone (Risperdal.) Dr. Lieberman`s comment

was reported in a Wall Street Journal examinationof the difficulties faced by so-called `patent-extender` Rxs.

AND JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

The following items were reported in the May28/08 edition of ChronicleMIDWEEK. Request a

free subscription from health@chronicle.org

Taro Pharmaceutical backed away from its year-old plan to merge with India's Sun Pharma-

ceuticals. Litigation may follow, say the peeved principals at Sun 

Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to buy Kosan

Biosciences, a publicly traded California-baseddeveloper of Ca Txs, for $190 million in cash

Vancouver ̀s OncoGenex, a privately helddeveloper of Ca Txs, will merge with Sonus

Pharmaceuticals of Bothell, Wash., in a share swapvalued at $12 million

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