Stephanie Sutton was an assistant editor at Pharmaceutical Technology Europe.

Stephanie Sutton

	The pharmaceutical industry still lags other industries in spending on outbound social media programs that engage customers directly, but they are – at least Big Pharma is – spending more on so-called inbound social media software and analytics, which lets them listen to what is being said online about brands and unmet needs and match that up marketing strategies.

	A new report from IDC Health Insights, titled “Worldwide Pharmaceutical Social Media Analytics 2012 Vendor Assessment,” found that pharma marketing departments are “starving for new ways to measure market sentiment, competitive analysis and promotional effectiveness” in areas that were previously difficult to gauge, according to Eric Newmark, program director, life sciences, IDC Health Insights and author of the report. “Companies are trying to answer questions like, ‘What are the sentiments being shared by our highest targeted physicians about brands in popular online communities,’ or ‘What is the biggest unmet need among our highest targeted physicians?’”

	Insights gleaned from listening in to social media conversations aren’t being widely integrated at an enterprise level just yet, but pharma is “becoming increasingly interested in integrating this information back into the broader spectrum of CRM and sales and marketing intelligence, so they can start to relate what they’re seeing online back with the actual customer profiles and CRM systems…that gives them something closer to a 360-degree view of what physicians are saying online, and actually tying that back to a [physician] profile,” says Newmark.

	Some companies continue to use third party service providers as a kind of regulatory buffer, in the belief that keeping a social media wiretap at arm’s length protects them from having to report adverse event discussions – discussions which may or may not meet FDA’s criteria for reporting – but source validation, relevancy, and weighting one online conversation against another, is becoming a strong area of focus and attention for pharma, says Newmark. “You don’t want to be misinterpreting what’s out there.”

	So who are the top vendors, according to Newmark’s six months of research and discussions with pharma? The leaders, in no particular order, include Indegene, Cognizant, ListenLogic, Genpact and Semantelli. On the next rung down – major players – Visible Technologies, Genpact and Radian6 made the cut; all have experience working with top pharmas.

	Companies have misjudged the market in the past – Newmark gives an example of a pharma company focusing on the “fast-acting” capabilities of a product, when, come to find out, patients aren’t as concerned about fast-acting as they are about specific side effects – which makes listening software, or monthly reports from service providers, a valuable tool in the marketing arsenal.

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The pharmaceutical industry still lags other industries in spending on outbound social media programs that engage customers directly.

Advancing Pharma’s Social Media Listening Analytics

	The 2009 swine flu pandemic (and panic) has been forgotten by most, but regulators, global health organisations and pharmaceutical companies are continuing post-pandemic activities, which include keeping an eye on new cases of the illness and monitoring the safety of pandemic vaccines.

	This week, swine flu returned to headlines after 

 published in the Public Library of Science appeared to confirm a link between GlaxoSmithKline’s Pandemrix vaccine and cases of narcolepsy in children in Finland. Between 2002 and 2009, instances of narcolepsy were around 0.31 per 100,000 people. In 2010, this jumped to 5.3 cases per 100,000, which equates to a 17-fold increase.

	Regulators have been aware of the link for some time. In July 2011, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 

 a safety review of Pandemrix, Although the overall risk–benefit balance of the vaccine remains positive, the EMA recommended that it should not be used in persons under 20 years of age unless a seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine is not available, or if an H1N1 vaccination is required.

	But the problem is that the link is not well understood. Pandemrix was used in dozens of countries, but the spike in narcolepsy cases only seems to be prevalent in Finland and Sweden. In Canada, an equivalent H1N1 vaccine (Arepanrix; also manufactured by GSK) was widely used, but did not seem to trigger an increase in narcolepsy cases. It is believed that Pandemrix interacted with genetic or environmental factors, which raised the risk of narcolepsy.

	According to media reports, the governments of other countries are aware of the study results and other research is taking place.

	The situation is a prime example of the importance of genetic factors on pharmaceutical products. A growing trend in the industry is for companies to explore the possibilities of personalised medicine, which involves matching the right patient with the right treatment. This is already being done for some medicines, including cancer medicines, using diagnostic tests.

	Unfortunately, Pandemrix has a long way to go before such a test can be developed, since it is still not known exactly how the vaccine is linked to narcolepsy. To complicate matters narcolepsy itself is also not very well understood. However, GSK is reported to be conducting more studies in order to further explore the link between its vaccine and narcolepsy.

The 2009 swine flu pandemic (and panic) has been forgotten by most, but regulators, global health organisations and pharmaceutical companies are continuing post-pandemic activities.