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Pharma should have a head start in the content marketing race, but familiar fears are holding it back, writes Peter Houston.
Peter Houston
You know this: digital marketing means you have the potential to get your message in front of more people than ever before; search and social media offer reach on an unparalleled scale. According to global internet analytics firm Comscore, there are 13.7 billion searches conducted on Google every month. With 60% of US consumers saying they looked for health information online in the last year, that’s a lot of potential patients. Read More
FDA: From Risk Aversion to Approval Activism
During the Rutgers Business School’s annual healthcare symposium, an FDA official encouraged industry to put its drugs on the reviewing table and be prepared for good news.
On a panel titled “Activist FDA: Transformation Agent,” Prevision Policy founder and former Pink Sheet editorial head Cole Werble relayed the tale of Acadia Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego-based company with a stage three compound (pimavanserin) targeting Parkinson’s disease-related psychosis.
A month ago, Acadia met with FDA to discuss the proper design of a new phase III trial intended to confirm the results of a previous, 17-month study that met its primary endpoints. A confirmation trial was needed, Acadia presumed, since the first phase III trial of pimavanserin, conducted in 2009 at half the dose of the successful trial, had failed. Acadia had already begun to enroll patients in the confirmation trial – which represented an $18 million commitment – when it met with FDA in April to get the agency’s blessing.
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