Pharma is "Cleverly Navigating" the Social Media Space Says TIME Magazine

Pharma is "Cleverly Navigating" the Social Media Space Says TIME Magazine

"Surprisingly, it's the pharmaceutical industry that's been at the forefront of moving the FDA to issue social-media rules," reports TIME Magazine reporter Steven Gray in a story published online today (see "Drug Companies Take Their Pitch to Social Media — Carefully").

Steven interviewed me for this story and quotes me in this passage: "The companies realize their traditional websites and advertising strategies are no longer sufficient tools to promote products in a competitive marketplace in which doctors, pharmacists and consumers aggressively trade information about medicine on blogs. The companies are also aware that 'if they can't fully participate in the social-media conversation, they get marginalized,' says John Mack, publisher of Pharma Marketing Blog, which attracts about 25,000 industry readers a month."

I thank Steven for this 10 minutes of fame.

Steven's article focuses exclusively on Novo Nordisk's Race with Insulin Twitter campaign (@racewithinsulin), which is described as "one of the most provocative examples of how pharmaceutical companies are cleverly navigating the emerging, largely unregulated social-media space." "Provocative," yes. "Cleverly navigating," not so much. I only need to point out the story about how sanofi aventis not so cleverly launched a Facebook page to debunk that (see "Where's Your Social Media Crisis Management Plan?").

The article is actually a very good PR piece for Novo Nordisk and Race with Insulin. Although I mentioned to Steven my blog post heard about Kimball's infamous branded Tweet heard round the world (see "Novo Nordisk's Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!"), this wasn't mentioned in the article. That particular tweet was not particularly clever, although I agree that it was provocative.

You've no doubt heard from many industry people that the media is out to get them and write negative stories about the drug industry. In fact, that's the kind of story I was expecting Steven to write. He, for example, wanted me to OK his use of the word "provocative" to describe the Race with Insulin social media campaign. The TIME piece, however, is not provocative and does not attack the drug industry for its efforts, which is fine with me. Just remember this the next time an industry executive complains about the media!

Can You Read This "Fair Balance" on Race With Insulin Twitter Page, or Is It Just Me Having Problems?

Can You Read This "Fair Balance" on Race With Insulin Twitter Page, or Is It Just Me Having Problems?

The "Race with Insulin" branded Twitter account is old news (listen to this podcast "Novo Nordisk's Race With Insulin Campaign: It's Not Just About Twitter").

Celebrity racecar driver and Levemir spokesperson Charlie Kimball is still posting interesting and informative tweets such as "Heading to bed. Just used my Levemir® FlexPen®. For Levemir® (insulin detemir [rDNA origin]) prescribing Info: http://tinyurl.com/28dp52d" and Novo Nordisk is making the rounds at industry conferences describing how they were able to do this while staying within FDA regulatory boundaries.

I am not going to complain about "sleazy spam tweets" and wonder what value such tweets are to patients. Instead, I'd like to point out how UNREADBALE the "fair balance" (safety) information is on the Race With Insulin Twitter page, which you can find here. I've reproduced that part of the page on the left. 

I challenge you to read this either using this image or viewing the original statement on the Race With Insulin Twitter page. It's impossible!


Novo Nordisk should realize that many people with diabetes are older and may have vision problems made worse by diabetes. For the sake of these patients, shouldn't Novo make this safety information more readable?


I also think the FDA should take an interest in this and issue Novo Nordisk a "warning letter" as it has done in other cases where fair balance information is not as prominent as benefit information.


To be fair, however, the Twitter page shows no "benefit" statements at all! It just mentions the medical condition and the brand name. Technically, therefore, while the safety information is required by the FDA, it's probably OK with the FDA that it is unreadable because there is no benefit statements to compare it with. What a dilemma!


This is a case where the pharma company should go beyond what is merely required by the regulators and provide a useful service to the patients who are using their products. What do you think?