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Two Sentences to Define Pharma Social Media

December 22nd, 2009

Here is the challenge should you choose to accept it: define social media and its value to pharmaceutical companies in two sentences.

In a world where 140-characters has emerged as the de facto standard for communication, it should be simple to sum up social media in two sentences—that’s practically a novel.  Not so fast.  As I described in a recent post, social media for the pharma industry faces a significant knowledge gap that needs to be bridged.  Because the marketing pundits have been stuck in evangelism mode they have neglected the need to educate a.  In addition to a knowledge gap, this passionate evangelism has created a bit of confusion. With every marketer looking to jump on the money-making scheme of the day, some people aren’t quite sure what the heck social media is.

This fact was driven home to me in a recent conversation I had with a former pharmaceutical executive.  This is a reasonably smart person that ascended the top ranks of a major pharmaceutical company before his retirement.  In short: he’s no slouch.  His question to me was: “Okay, you have told me a lot about social media and its benefits, but if you are sitting in a meeting and staring down a high-level executive, what would you tell that person in two sentences to get your point across?”

I struggled to answer that question concisely in the first go around.  I’ve written 30 posts amounting to somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 words in the last 6 weeks—but when you ask me to sum that up in two sentence I am hard pressed.

Here was my response: “Social media flies in the face of the marketing efforts that are based on hitting as many eyeballs as possible—the same marketing efforts that have failed pharmaceutical companies.  Instead, social media is a more targeted form of marketing that requires a company to engage in a two-way dialogue, add more value than it extracts and provide content of value to a community of people, congregated online, that have expressed an interest in that topic.”

See, not so easy is it?  It took me two run-on sentences to get in the vicinity of my point.  What’s your answer?  In two sentences, tell me what social media is and the value it brings to pharmaceutical companies.

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Listen Closely for the Voice of the Patient

December 21st, 2009

My recent ramblings on pharma social media have been very much focused on bringing the patient to the forefront of our strategic planning.  This is where the concept of “Return on Health” (ROH) is particularly useful.  It lays the groundwork to make sound decisions based on what is best for the patient.  Without question, this should be the primary consideration of almost every pharmaceutical social media engagement.

But how is this different from the marketing strategy followed by many pharmaceutical companies for the past decade?  One could easily argue that the patient has always been at the center of the pharmaceutical marketing mix.  The advertising campaigns, production of office samples and community outreach efforts were geared toward raising awareness at the patient level.  In that sense, the industry has always been laser focused on the patient.  Patients ultimately drive revenue and every company enjoys padding the bottom line.

The difference with Return on Health is the idea of Voice of Patient. Past pharmaceutical marketing initiatives that target the patient tend to do so with broad messages aimed at creating a demand spike.  It’s an attempt to tell the patient “what they should want.”  Many old forms of pharmaceutical marketing don’t take into account the Voice of Patient and instead are one-directional forms of communication.  The Voice of Patient concept requires a pharmaceutical company to listen first, market second.  Patients are increasingly playing a larger role in their own health decisions.  This dynamic requires the pharmaceutical company to listen not only to what patients want, but what they need as well.  Voice of Patient asks the pharmaceutical company to engage in a two-way conversation with the patient in an attempt to add valuable information to the mix.

Return on Health implies that health guides the decision-making process of a pharmaceutical company prior to engaging in social media.  Voice of Patient is what distinguishes current marketing efforts focused on the patient from previous tactics geared toward the patient.

The patient community wants to have a conversation—but are you listening?

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Pharma Social Media: Sea Change or Fad?

December 18th, 2009

There was a period of time in the not-so-distant past that social media for the pharmaceutical industry was considered nothing more than a fad.  Skeptics scoffed at the job titles of “social media lead” and “new media director” proclaiming those jobs would be gone in a year.  Those same skeptics swore that regulations, monitoring for adverse events and discussion around off-label usage would curtail any useful social media effort for pharma.

“It’s just a fad,” was the common refrain.  No more.  Social media for pharmaceutical marketing no longer represents a fad—it’s a sea change.  Here’s why:

1.)    The Pharma Strategy Has Changed

The days when pharmaceutical companies would stubbornly insist on filling their pipelines with blockbuster drugs have come and gone.  They still look for that rare blockbuster, but they no longer bet the farm on the one drug that will rake in billions.  Part of this is a simple matter of supply and demand.  There are just not that many blockbuster drugs left out there.  But more than that, medicine has changed from chasing mass-market conditions to disease categories that impact a fewer subset of people.  This requires a more personalized approach to treatment.  How does this impact marketing? Marketing has been forced to respond to the shifting pharma landscape and match its efforts.  In a world of personalized medicine, mass marketing efforts now seem to make less and less sense.  Hitting as many eyeballs as possible does little to move the needle on drug sales of an orphan drug targeted at specific disease states.  The same can’t be said for social media.  Social media marketing programs are designed to engage with the patient at a personal level.  By its nature, social media is best suited for a specific audience with similar interests.  The beauty is this is a two-way street.  Patients are far more likely to be engaged in your marketing efforts if it strikes a personal chord.  Personalized medicine necessitates personalized marketing.

2.)    Shrinking Sales Forces in Favor of Targeted Efforts

Following the move away from blockbuster drugs, pharmaceutical companies no longer have a need for the same massive sales forces of yesteryear.  The benefits of a solid relationship at the direct sales level will never be eliminated, but the army of salesmen no longer exists.  Pharma companies are now scaling back sales efforts in favor of focused outreach efforts.  Glad handing is a thing of the past.  Now, it’s about leveraging your relationships to offer a product or service of value.  How does this impact marketing? Marketing falls directly in line with the philosophy of the new sales model.  In the new marketing mix, pharmaceutical marketers prefer to focus their efforts rather than deploy a wide swath of messages.  An effective social media program can help the focused efforts of a sales force by creating demand at the patient level and awareness at the physician level.  A targeted sales force should be supported by a targeted marketing effort.  Social media allows that to happen.

3.)    Patients Have More Information and Play a Larger Role in Health Decisions

Doctors spend a lot of money, time and energy earning the right to practice medicine.  They are well-educated, smart people that are accustomed to knowing more then the average patient.  But in today’s pharmaceutical world, the patient often has access to as much information as the physician regarding diseases, treatment options and alternatives.  This doesn’t mean the physician is no longer the expert, but it does mean that patients now play a much larger role in their health decisions than ever before.  A doctor no longer has the luxury of being the only person in the exam room that has access to pertinent information.  How does this impact marketing? This dynamic probably plays the largest role in influencing the shift in marketing.  With patients at the center of every decision concerning their health, pharmaceutical companies need to adopt a philosophy that not only considers Return on Investment, but also Return on Health (ROH).  The job of a marketers has changed from pushing information to engaging in a two-way conversation with the patient.  Social media efforts for pharmaceutical companies are now focusing on putting more information at the hands of the patient.  As mentioned above, this creates demand in the doctor’s office but also helps to create a more educated patient community.

4.)    Regulatory Environment is Showing Signs of Life

It’s no secret that concerns around the regulatory environment pose the greatest obstacle to social media engagement for pharmaceutical companies.  Between the great work of debunking those myths and the FDA showing a willingness to consider social media as part of the marketer’s toolkit, the hurdle posed by the regulatory environment looks to be smaller every day.   How does this impact marketing? The impact here is obvious.  Some pharmaceutical marketers have been content to sit on the sidelines purely out of fear.  As the FDA loosens its grip on social media, the pharma industry will surely show a greater sense of urgency to begin the social media engagement process.

There are a probably a dozen more reasons that illustrate the idea that social media for the pharmaceutical industry is more of a sea change than a fad.  But here’s the main point to take away from all of this.  A fad is something that happens in isolation of external forces.  A sea change lines up with, and supports external forces.  Social media for pharmaceutical companies is supporting the overall industry change—not fighting it.

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The Pharma Social Media Land Grab

December 15th, 2009

The rise of social media as an accepted marketing platform has brought with it a predictable rise in the companies that market “social media services.”  The land grab that is taking place has the potential to confuse an industry that is just in its infancy.

There are large digital agencies, advertising firms, branding firms, PR agencies and social media shops that claim to all offer similar services.  How is a marketing manager supposed to decipher the differences between these types of agencies and decide which is best suited for the job?

This isn’t an issue unique to the world of pharmaceutical marketing.  In all industries, companies are coming out of the woodwork with promises of improving social media engagement in (INSERT YOUR INDUSTRY OF CHOICE).  But the issue does threaten to gain a much stronger hold in pharma.  Why?  This is an industry that pumps money into traditional means of advertising and branding.  They are accustomed to dealing with the big conglomerates, so they are naturally inclined to stay with what’s comfortable.  Digital agencies and ad agencies are the natural choice to gain a piece of the emerging social media pie.  As a pharmaceutical marketing executive, you are faced with the same choice as any other industry—a bevy of options with no clear standout.  What type of agency should you go with?  Who is best suited to offer strategic counsel and tactical execution of a social media program?

My answer: it doesn’t matter.  Forget about, what type of agency you are considering and dig deeper into the types of services they offer.  B.L. Ochman wrote a piece today for Ad Age that suggests you ask two simple questions as a starting point: Do they have case studies to share?  And, do they walk the walk?  While that probably over simplifies the process a bit, I tend to agree.  Being and ad firm does not make you innately better at social media just like being a PR firm doesn’t lend added qualifications.

The land grab that is taking place around digital agencies, ad firms and PR shops is misguided.  In fact, the constant debate is probably causing us to miss major opportunities to work together.  There are many areas where these types of firms could partner to form a stronger engagement strategy but have largely overlooked that option.  The jockeying for position is a wasted effort.  Instead of spending time proving why a certain type of agency is better for social media engagements with pharmaceutical companies, we should spend a little more time demonstrating our social media chops.

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Educating Legal and Regulatory Departments Inside Pharmaceutical Companies on Social Media

December 10th, 2009

Yesterday, I made the case that agencies have moved passed the stage of convincing marketers on the value of social media and are at a point where the focus needs to be on education.  Regulatory and legal departments inside pharmaceutical companies now stand as the major roadblocks to more widespread adoption and acceptance of social media for pharma.

Much of that urge to limit social media programs is discomfort around a lack of knowledge.  That’s on us.  We have spent so much time and energy in convincing the world that social media matters we forgot the basics—education.  What is this social media stuff anyway?

Dispose of terms like microblogging, social influencers, meme, folksconomy and del.ic.ious.  They will only hurt your efforts to educate legal and regulatory departments inside pharmaceutical companies.  Start with the basics.

To close out yesterday’s post, I asked an open-ended question: What role does an agency play in this process of educating internal departments on what social media is and what value it brings to the table?  I did receive some feedback ranging from: “Agencies should stay out of it; they don’t understand the internal politics.”  To: “Agencies only come across as salesy because we all know they have skin in the game.”  And some felt: “Agencies have been ahead of this stuff and pushing it for quite some time, perhaps it makes sense for the education efforts to come from that world.”

All of that is valid feedback.  For starters, as agency people, we probably don’t understand the internal politics at work and how to overcome that dynamic.  Second, you are right; we do have skin in the game. My agency and I would love to help more pharmaceutical companies with social media.  And as you might expect, I do believe that some agencies are better positioned to take up this education crusade because frankly, they’ve been at it the longest.

The job of an agency is to understand not only external audiences, but internal audiences as well.  The reality facing pharmaceutical companies is that legal and regulatory departments get queasy when you mention social media.  But again: it’s not because they dismiss the idea, it’s because we have done a poor job at educating them.  Shame on us.

So what can we do?

Think back to when you first started blogging, engaging on Twitter or corresponding with Facebook administrators.  Didn’t you feel a little lost?  When you attempt to educate, don’t forget that feeling of discomfort.  Even before you engage with a pharmaceutical company (yes before), offer to conduct Twitter 101 sessions.  Explain what it is in layman’s terms.  Pull up some recent examples of where their brand has been discussed or misinformation has been spread.  Don’t be afraid to show a real-time demonstration of how it works to provide a sense of the types of resources needed to manage this process.  Find an internal champion at the organization that can bridge the divide and smooth over any differences.  Maybe even start really basic and pull up a social media news release.  Sure, it’s a little rudimentary but everyone in legal and regulatory knows the format of a press release.  Pulling up a social media press release illustrates that this world isn’t that scary after all.  These are things that need to be done upfront, to help move the social media process forward.

The takeaway here is that agencies have a role, and even a responsibility to play in educating internal departments.  Without a solid education base for all stakeholders involved, we will never be able to bridge the gap that currently exists.  Take baby steps.  We will get there.

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Pharma Social Media Brings Discomfort in Lack of Knowledge

December 9th, 2009

Maybe it is the fast-approaching conclusion of 2009, but recently I have been doing a lot of retrospective thinking.  In some ways, 2009 was a banner year for pharma social media.  Look no further than last month’s FDA public hearings for proof positive.  For sure, significant progress has been made in paving the road to widespread adoption and acceptance of social media as a marketing tool for pharmaceutical companies.

On the flip side, huge challenges still exist.  Despite the fact that the FDA met to shape its thinking around how to handle new media technologies, guidance still seems like a mere speck on the horizon.  And despite all the great work that is being done to dispel the adverse event myth and quell fears around other regulatory issues, concerns still persist.  As much as we sometimes write off these hurdles as excuses to stay out of social media, I would venture to say they still stand as the greatest hurdle.

The good news is the nature of that challenge has changed.  It used to be that the first conversations you had with a pharmaceutical marketer were focused on selling the value of social media and why various emarketing techniques could provide more bang for the buck than traditional TV ad spend.  Discussion on how social media could help the company was not even on the table until social media itself was proved as a viable marketing vehicle.  A number of recent conversations I’ve had with people inside pharmaceutical companies have convinced me that we are moving beyond that stage.

The stage where marketing people need to be sold has come and gone.  For the most part, the marketing folks inside pharma companies understand the value social media brings to the table.  Instead, the selling aspect of a social media program has shifted from the marketing department to the legal and regulatory department.  Even if the marketing department believes in social media and is ready to move forward with a program, the legal and regulatory group can pull the plug at a moments notice.  In fact, some marketing departments are so close with their social media plans that they are literally ready to flip a switch once they receive clearance.

If pharma social media is ever going to reach its potential, the role of the agency is to arm internal marketers with the ammo to convince regulatory and legal that social media is not a lawsuit waiting to happen.  I firmly believe that the majority of this discomfort is a lack of knowledge and understanding around what these tools are.  The result is they are dismissed off hand.

In tomorrow’s post, I will outline the role of the agency in helping to arm marketers with the information needed to educate internal departments.  In the meantime, I am curious: what role do you think the agency can play in educating legal and regulatory departments inside pharmaceutical companies on social media?

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My Advice for Pharma Social Media Programs: Ignore the Consumer

December 4th, 2009

Surprised to read that title?  Think I’ve finally gone off the deep end (it’s been a long time coming after all)?  I’ve been spending so much time discussing how social media depends on personal interactions, why would I advocate for ignoring the consumer during a social media engagement?  Common wisdom suggests that you should listen, respond and interact with the consumer to provide a personal brand experience and to cultivate brand loyalists.  Surely, ignoring the consumer isn’t the way to go about building brand loyalty—is it?

Glad you asked.

Tell me: who is the consumer?  Is it me, you or the guy in the cube next to you?  Go ahead; I’ll wait while you ponder the answer to that question.  The reason you are struggling for a response is because “the consumer” doesn’t exist.  The consumer is a statistical body that points out buying trends, tendencies and behaviors among a group of people.  The consumer is an entity that is extremely important to the advertising industry because it highlights how to reach the most people possible with a single message.  Consumers are what motivate companies like Budweiser to buy ad spots on channels like ESPN during football games.  Because the consumer is a statistical entity, it is utterly useless when it comes to social media.

My advice to pharmaceutical companies seeking to engage in social media: forget about the consumer; focus on the customer (in this case, the patient).  Social media at its core is relationship marketing.  Relationship marketing is predicated on forming 1:1 relationships with customers and engaging in meaningful conversations.  The 1:1 aspect of social media makes dealing with the statistical body that is the consumer nearly impossible.

Marketing programs that are focused on the consumer are inherently set up to hit as many eyeballs as possible.  It falls squarely into the realm of traditional marketing techniques.  A social media engagement that focuses on the supposed needs of the consumer is doomed to fail because it sets the expectation that a blanket message is appropriate.  That won’t fly in any social media circle and it certainly won’t fly when you are dealing with people’s health.  Focusing on the consumer is the type of thinking that breeds lazy approaches to PR and social media (think spamming reporters, leaving the same comment in 55 different locations, mass blasting a group of bloggers with the same pitch).

In the case of healthcare, patients are on social networks for a unique experience.  It appeals to such a large number of people because each individual gets a different experience.  Shaping your engagement based on “the consumer” stomps out that aspect.  Pharmaceutical companies need to focus on the customer/patient.  This brings social media down to the individual level and provides a greater understanding of what is unique about each individual.

Health is highly personal, social media should be too.

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Do Patients Want Pharma in Social Media?

December 3rd, 2009

There is a common belief that even if the pharma industry decided to implement social media programs in droves that patients would automatically rebuff their efforts.  There is considerable logic to this line of thinking.

For starters, individuals generally don’t join a social network to engage with brands.  They participate in social networks to connect with friends, meet new people or expand their knowledge base.  You would have to search high and low to find a person that joined a social network with the intent of interacting with a brand.  Because of this dynamic, people are predisposed to place more scrutiny on a corporate entity participating in a social media community than an individual.  This holds true for any company, but when you consider a pharmaceutical company the effect becomes magnified.

Pharmaceutical companies are in a highly regulated industry where every move they make is placed under the microscope.  More so than other industries, customers (in this case patients) pick apart every message and every nuance that comes from a pharmaceutical company.  There is little room for slip ups, which makes social media an uncomfortable place for many pharma companies.  Finally, the pharma industry has been steadily losing the trust of the general public. People have grown wary of the bombardment of ads and the seemingly veiled communications efforts.  When a pharma company decides to become an active participant in social media you can bet a horde of people are watching their every move just hoping for a misstep.

This is the lens that shapes the opinion that pharma is not welcome in social media circles.  But the more I talk with people in the industry and with patients, the more it becomes apparent that simply is not the case.  Sure, patients are wary of the participation of healthcare companies for all of the aforementioned reasons.  But even more so, they are wary because it is their health that we are talking about.  This isn’t a decision on which laptop to buy or which new cell phone has the best apps.  This is a decision that literally impacts the way you live your life.  Patients have every right to be wary of pharmaceutical companies.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t want them to be a part of their communities.  Generally speaking, what someone suffering from an illness wants is information.  It provides comfort, peace of mind and some semblance of control.  Personally, I can tell you that when my Mom was diagnosed with Melanoma I voraciously read everything I could find about living with the disease, the survival rate and courses of treatment.  I would have welcomed input from a pharmaceutical company that was pioneering treatment to boil that information down to make it more digestible.

Patients want information.  Pharma holds the information.  Pharma has a unique ability, in fact a responsibility, to educate patients as much as possible.  Why should a little extra scrutiny stand in the way?  As a company, if you are there for the right reasons and keep the patient at the center of your decision-making process, you will welcome the added attention.

UPDATE: The good folks over the Path of the Blue Eye Project alerted me to some interesting statistics that highlight the importance of information to e-patients.  Keep an eye out for the full report next week.

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Does Pharma Need Social Media Purists or Realists?

December 1st, 2009

In the world of social media, there are two types of people out there: purists and realists.  Social media purists tend to stick rigidly to some unwritten code of social media and believe in the “all or nothing approach.”  A social media purist will say: “if you aren’t going to go full bore, you aren’t really being social.”  A social media purist will also dismiss the notion of social media monitoring as a way to extract value from the activity of others on social networks without incurring the dangers of participating.

Social media purists were crucial in beating the drum loudly and frequently on behalf of communications professionals.  Their role as evangelists cannot be overstated.  Without the social media purists of the world, we likely would never have arrived at the point where we are today.  What point is that you ask?  We have arrived at a point where social media is an accepted part of the marketing mix and not simply a tool for the bleeding-edge types.  The social media purists have become somewhat of an echo chamber.  You know those types of people that are huge fans of a band but as soon as they start selling records they label the band a sell out?  I bet those people are social media purists too.

A social media realist is a practitioner—someone that is down in the weeds fighting the battles of social media every day.  In the world of pharmaceutical marketing, social media realists need to play the prominent role as we move forward.

The fact is: a social media realist understands that in pharma, it’s not only ill-advised; it is dangerous for companies to dive in head first.  Social media realists understand that sometimes it is okay to just listen to social networks first before embarking on true engagement.  Of course, true engagement is the ultimate goal, but a realist understands that the only way to get there is to take baby steps.  Getting there is the goal right?  A pharma social media realist understands that there are a lot of minds that need to be changed and a lot of hurdles that need to be cleared before engaging fully in social media.  In most cases, the best way to do that is sell people in small doses. Bite off a small chunk of the world of social media and do it well.  Once that “pilot” program is successful, the excitement will build to more sustainable efforts.

Selling a pharmaceutical company on social media does not happen from a mountain top and it sure as heck doesn’t happen from an echo chamber.  So what are you: a social media purist or realist?

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Genzyme Vial Contamination Offers Insight into Pharma Crisis Communications

November 24th, 2009

As you probably have heard by now, biotech giant Genzyme is having some manufacturing difficulties at its Allston plant (pictured on the left).  The issues started when the plant had to be shut down over the summer due to a viral contamination problem and continued last week when shards of steel and rubber were discovered in some of the Company’s vials.

The second manufacturing defect only impacted about one percent of the vials leaving the plant and with proper precautions, should have minimal patient impact.  It was a relatively minor incident.  But you wouldn’t know it if you looked at some of the sensational headlines coming out that proclaimed “garbage” was found in Genzyme drugs.  That’s because this is a situation where perception has become reality.  Even though the most recent slip up should not trickle down to patients, when it comes on the heels of a 3-month plant shut down that caused the drugs for orphan diseases to be rationed, you are certainly in the midst of a communications crisis.

The thing about crisis communications is it should never sneak up on you, especially in a highly regulated industry such as pharma.  It should be an integral part of any public relations plan developed for a pharmaceutical or biotech company.  This plan should address the decision-making process and authority during a crisis, the primary messages that need to be communicated (i.e. patient safety), a philosophy around transparency and an approval process of official communications.  With all of this in place, you should never feel stifled by a crisis.

This isn’t to say every hiccup can be predicted and a specific plan should be in place for each possible scenario.  That’s neither feasible nor productive.  However, there should be a clear framework in place that allows you to take quick and decisive action in times of crisis.  Your ability to minimize the damage posed by a crisis communications situation comes down to your decision-making framework.

This is where a concept such as Return on Health (ROH) is particularly useful.  If the patient is at the forefront at all times, including during a crisis, your actions will certainly reflect that.  In the case of Genzyme, the first course of action would be to acknowledge the problem.  In evaluating the responses from the day the news broke of the second problem at the Allston plant, it appears the company was open and available to speak to the press.  That is a good thing.  Perhaps it was a lesson learned from the plant shutdown when the company took some heat for waiting two to three days to disclose the viral contamination.  While the company contended that it needed to get its messages aligned with the FDA before making any public disclosure and technically abided by all laws covering the dissemination of that type of information, it sent the wrong message.

When you look like you are covering something up, people are inclined to assume that you are.  In the case of Genzyme, it would have been better to immediately acknowledge the problem and commit to releasing another official statement once it discussed next steps with the FDA.  In doing so, you go on record as admitting a problem once it occurs and making an effort to solve that problem as quick as possible.  Patients and the general population are apt to forgive a manufacturing error; they are not likely to forgive an attempt at covering up that error.  With ROH at the center of your decision-making process, this becomes a simple course of action.  Patients feel it is their right to know when their health could be affected.  As soon as you know, they feel they should know.  If ROH is your guiding principle, you inevitably get out there early and often to minimize the patient impact of any problem.  The problem for Genzyme was that even though it probably had the best of intentions, a certain amount of skepticism had already developed once they did acknowledge the problem.

That skepticism resulting from the first incident is what the Company is currently experiencing.  The fact is: the most recent incident is fairly benign.  However, because it is the second in a short period of time and the perceived lack of response during the last situation, it is being overly scrutinized.  Genzyme has landed in the crosshairs of both the FDA and the public.

Genzyme is doing the right thing by not hiding from this problem.  As mentioned earlier, company spokespeople seem open to addressing this problem with the media.  However, the message in that communication largely seems to downplay the significance of this event.  The tone and tenor of the remarks is to justify what happened as a normal part of operating procedure in a very complex manufacturing process.  Commentary from company executives has addressed that a 1 percent contamination rate is well within the industry norm and that the company already suggests doctors filter the drug before infusion (consistent with the FDA’s recommendation to combat the issue).  This approach may work if it were the first instance of a problem, but because it is the second; it does not display the right amount of patient empathy.

And while everything the company has discussed to date is accurate, I would take a different approach.  Because they are battling a perception problem, defending this manufacturing blip as something that happens across the industry doesn’t evoke the type of accountability patients are seeking.  Rather than justification, I would counsel Genzyme to tackle the problem head on right from the outset.

Here is what I would counsel Genzyme to say if I were handling its communications: “At Genzyme, we are in the business of developing drugs that treat orphan diseases.  There are few alternatives to our medications.  It is unacceptable that anything stands in the way of that commitment to get our patients treatment.  This latest manufacturing error does not meet the standard of excellence that we hold ourselves to as a Company.  And although only 1 percent of our vials have been impacted, we strive to lead the industry, not fall within the norm.  We will make every effort to ensure that this does not happen again and that our patients continue to get the treatment they deserve.”

What have we achieved with this approach?  Shown empathy, not defense.  Patients, and health care professionals for that matter, don’t want to hear how hard it is to manufacture drugs.  They want to hear that a commitment has been made to their health.  The difference is that this message not only conveys empathy but it also displays a human side.  Genzyme would be able to illustrate that it understands the impact its drugs have on patients and that it holds itself to a higher standard because of that impact.

Too risky you say?  Admitting to a problem would cause the stock price to plummet you argue?  Maybe so.  But I would also remind you that Genzyme’s stock plummeted about 7 percent immediately following the disclosure of this incident.  Certainly the current approach did not protect the stock price so why make decisions based on what the street wants to hear?  Why not instead make decisions geared toward the stakeholders that will drive your long-term value—patients?

The problem many companies make in a crisis situation is to attempt to solve it or downplay it one barrage of messages.  But that’s impossible to achieve.  A crisis communications situation is more about being part of the solution and conversation than it is about solving it right at the outset.

Genzyme has done a great job of not running from the issue at hand—now it simply needs to tweak its message and focus on the impact it has on the patient.

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