The Soul of Biotech

I’ve been thinking about non-personal promotion a bit more since my previous post on Novartis’ FluFlix contest.

A casual search of Facebook for the top ten best-selling pharmaceutical brands of 2006 reveals that social groups already exist for most:

1. Lipitor
2. Advair
3. Plavix
4. Nexium
5. Norvasc
6. Remicade
7. Enbrel
8. Zyprexa
9. Diovan
10. Risperdal

Primarily, these groups seem to provide an opportunity for support and treatment discussion among patients across the world. So far, no promotional messages are visible other than those along the lines of “Yeah, I take this drug and it works for me.” But it’s not a stretch to imagine pharmaceutical brand teams eventually getting involved in order to inform patients and, of course, promote product.

In fact, it has already started. Take a closer look at the Norvasc group above. Of the links above, only the Norvasc group was not, as far as I can tell, started by patients. It was actually started by some students as part of a pharmaceutical marketing project! I guess I’m not the only one who thought of this.

The number of people in any of these groups isn’t very big yet. Most contain fewer than 100 members. That’s not surprising, because most people taking these medications are older, and Facebook users are, well, not. But what happens when that 13-28 set currently dominating Facebook and other social media sites begin running brand teams in 5-10 years? Or what happens when enough users get to the point where they too require all these medications? And which pharmaceutical company will be first to untangle the regulatory hassle that creating a social media pharmaceutical promotion could entail?

You may have already heard that the Republican party recently announced a new motto: “The Change You Deserve.” Politics aside, some brouhaha has been made of the fact that this slogan is already in use by Wyeth’s Effexor antidepressant. High comedy, of course. In fact, Pharmalot, one of my favorite pharma blogs, wondered if Wyeth should sue the Republicans for copyright infringement. I feel such an idea is ludicrous.

Look at some of the coverage of the Republican Party / Effexor tangle-up:

• Washington Post
• NY Times
• The Daily Show

The Post article in particular includes:

• Pictures of Effexor
• Copies of Effexor’s marketing messages
• The starting dose
• Coverage of side effects

If I was the Effexor brand director, I would have been dancing when the news was announced. It resulted in some completely free DTC advertising in most major media outlets. I might have provided the reps who carry Effexor with some guidelines for reactive answers to physician questions about the news, simply to clarify that the move by the Republicans was not in concert with Wyeth, and Wyeth has no position on the issue. Other than that, I’d sit back, enjoy the free press, the new hits on my website, and the resulting bump in sales. It’s a nice treat for an off-patent medication.

I would only sue the Republicans over this in order to get it back in the papers again a couple of months from now. But even then, I’d be reluctant to potentially damage relations with either political party over something that has been fairly positive for the company (Wyeth has donated evenly to both parties, Pharmalot reports).

By the way, if there are any political parties looking for another idea, I suggest “Enough is Enough,” which is Enbrel’s DTC slogan. I think the bump in our sales would probably net me at least a new iPod.

My name is Jonathan Sheffi, and I approved this blog post.

My notes on the 10-minute company pitches. None are portfolio companies of Burrill, the sponsor.

* Blacktoe Medical: finger probe connected to HUD so that doctor can see what’s at the tip of his finger during surgery. Looks cool. I wonder whether hospitals would find it to be cost-effective.
* Dimera: DP9, thromboxane receptor antagonist, treating CVD in post-menopausal women. Patent expiration of 2017. Successful in pre-clinical trials. Ready to enter Phase III. Looking for another $40M for Phase III. Sounds like a promising product, but I wanted to know more about the manufacturing and marketing strategy.
* Electrical Geodesics: Functional Neuroimaging. Create anatomically specific information about changes in brain function. Profitable (barely) in 8 of last 9 quarters. The presentation was focused more on the product than on the market opportunity, which seems to reflect the overall strategy of the company. I like to hear a lot of discussion about the end users, and I didn’t hear it.
* FloraGenex: AgBio company doing genetic screening for plants. Great presenter, great presentation! Led with a memorable customer story (Heinz trying to save money on corn syrup) and how the company is trying to solve the customer’s problem. Simple value proposition: speedy identification of plant markers for customers using genetic sequencing. Detailed explanation of market and of customer, and how the technology will serve both well. Bravo!
* MolecularMD: Molecular diagnostic testing for CML and NSCLC. Plans to expand from assays and pharma services to physician services and kits.
* Vesticon: Med tech company working on vertigo diagnosis and treatment. Planning to deepen sales to existing customers with upgrades and portable versions.

Today, I’m attending Burrill & Company’s Pacific Northwest Life Sciences Meeting, and will try to throw up a few live blogs while I’m here. This morning, Burrill’s CEO is currently presenting a state of affairs of the industry. All in all, a good summary of the industry. Mr. Burrill had a lot of ground to cover in only an hour, and I think he may not have had a chance to go into as much depth as I would have enjoyed, which is too bad. A quick summary of the points so far (and my thoughts in parentheses).

* blockbuster model switching to personalized medicine (sure)
* biotech is beating pharma in return to shareholders (a myth in my view — taking out AMGN and DNA, biotech hasn’t been a particularly good bet for shareholders — and most biotech vs pharma graphs don’t include the myriad failed private biotechs)
* biofuels are booming (the investments are booming, and it is a ferociously cool idea that I hope works eventually, but my understanding is that nobody has gone carbon-negative yet, and there are serious roadblocks in this technology at present)
* costs are going up because people are living longer (yes, and managed care is transferring cost and risk away as efficiently as it can, which is shaping how people seek care for themselves)
* prescription drugs are only ~10% of health care costs, far from the major driver they are usually painted as (great point, great insight)
* R&D productivity is going down — the famous R&D spending vs NME’s graph — and it is attributable to the FDA’s new attitude toward risk (agree, but I think that druggable targets are also harder to find than they used to be, and the low-hanging fruit have been eaten)
* big companies can’t innovate (I think that an intelligently designed organization can do it — I was impressed by Garnier’s recent article in HBR about GSK’s R&D redesign, and I wonder if it’s working)
* heading to rational drug design by 2020 due to pharmacogenomics (RDD will require substantial advances in systems biology first, not just pharmacogenomics)
* lots happening in China (agree — IP protection policy will determine the future of biotech there)
* FIPCO replaced by VIPCO (yes — sort of. I think VIPCOs will work better when there is a low degree of informational asymmetry between partners. That means situations where the product’s mechanism or technology is familiar to the licensor. FIPCOs will be a better plan for companies with truly novel technologies, because they will get better product support from within than without.)

We’ve got the final cut of the Social Bonding talk from the BIL 2008 “unconference” up on YouTube!

Many thanks to:

• Robert Scoble at Fast Company for the initial rough cut from his cell phone.
• Brian over at Hostile Fork for taking the first part of the video
• Matt Knopp for putting it together with Scoble’s video.

Watch part 1 here and part 2 here.

I’m writing this post live at BIL! Prof. Daniel Frank from Stanford University has just concluded his talk called, “Stem Cells: Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.” Brilliant guy, and an aircraft pilot as well! I’m skipping out on some lunch to give my thoughts from this weekend.

BIL has been a tremendous experience for me. Lexi and I have already received lots of positive feedback from BILders who saw our talk on Saturday morning — and even from a few TEDsters who only heard about it. One TEDster, after I explained the entire talk to her after dinner at Montrio, said that our talk was as important as any technological venture. (Wow.) But more gratifying were the people that approached Lexi and I to say that our talk was highly memorable and helped them reexamine their own approaches to social interaction. Which was our goal all along.

Some bits of yesterday’s talk:
* A very rough video of the Social Bonding talk can be seen here, courtesy of Robert Scoble. We’ll get a better version onto the web soon.
* The deck for our talk can be seen here, but it won’t mean much without the two of us standing in front of it.
* A great shot of me delivering the fourth point.

I’ve also been fortunate enough to connect with leaders of several small new companies that I admire, including Allied Strategy, Replicus, Business Genome Project, Naviscribe, and Halcyon Molecular. Hearing about new business ideas is always fun, and for all of these companies (especially Replicus and Halcyon), if their execution is successful, I predict you’ll be reading about them for a long long time.

My talk starts in half an hour, at 11:45am Pacific time. If you see this in time, you can watch the webcast live right here!

BIL is a new kind of science and technology conference, set up as a more egalitarian cousin to TED. My close friend Lexi Bright, who writes over at Sophisticated Relationships persuaded me to join her in delivering a presentation on the topic of person-to-person networking to the attendees of BIL. (I love speaking in front of groups — she didn’t have to try very hard.)

Anyone who knows me personally is nodding, because they know how enthusiastic I am about meeting someone new and learning all about him or her. When I was a sophomore at MIT, my friend Brian joked, “Jonathan, you’re the one that makes that whole ’six degrees of separation’ thing work.” Later, Malcolm Gladwell would identify me as a ‘connector’. Who knew.

I’m still trying to figure out what parts to emphasize in the talk. Last night, I showed up at Bagdad Theater on Hawthorne for Ignite Portland, but it was already over capacity. So I walked down the street and ended up having a bite at My Thai, discussing the topic of my talk with my waitress, Emily, as I dug into my massamun curry. Emily graduated from Skidmore last year and drove out to Portland from New York this summer with her old housemates. Now she teaches grade school in Gresham by day and waits tables by night.

Emily and I talked about the nature of networking for a while — she says we shouldn’t use the word, because it gives her the willies. And I know what she means. When we think “networking,” we think of dryly exchanging cards, with the “lower status” person trying to get time on the calendar of the other in order to pitch his product, company, or employability. She suggested that we make sure to divorce the word from its usual meaning and reunite it with the idea of being open, honest and sincere with others. This sounded spot-on with my own interpretation of networking, and I’ll be sure to emphasize it in our talk.

Lexi and I are still writing the talk as we speak, and suggestions are welcome. So tell me what you think. Keeping in mind that the audience will be primarily technically-oriented, what should Lexi and I emphasize in our talk? What should geeks know about talking to strangers?

Boy, it’s been a long time since I wrote.

I finished my training in December, and at the turn of the new year, I finally hit the road to meet my doctors and talk product. I wish I could talk specifically about the fascinating interactions I’ve had with my physicians, but I can’t for confidentiality reasons. I can at least talk a bit about the rep experience, which has been tough but rewarding.

Last week, I came up with the perfect analogy for being a new rep: It’s like being transferred to a new school. At first, you don’t know where the classrooms are. No one knows who you are, so they aren’t especially interested in talking to you. You’re nervous, so you drop your books a couple of times. Your jokes aren’t funny, but you’re nervous so you laugh at them yourself. That sort of thing.

Things get better the same way they do in high school. You make a few friends, they actually laugh at your jokes, and eventually things get better, and before you know it, other people are glad you’re there. In the meantime, you do your homework conscientiously, ask good questions, and try to get your grades up as quickly as possible.

[Of course, it also helps when your big sister (aka partner) gets straight A's, is as popular as the prom queen, and is kind enough to point the way.]