Although Pfizer claimed the first and third spots on the league table, AZ emerged as the industry’s digital powerhouse with three brands in the top ten—Nexium, Crestor, and Symbicort—and four in the top 20.

While AZ maybe innovating online, L2 founder and NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway said that the industry as a whole disappoints. “Most brands offer obsolete technology, anemic content and scant social media programs.” Summing up the challenge facing pharma, PHD Network CEO Scott Hagedorn said, “Right now, there are millions of unregulated conversations taking place online regarding prescription drugs, from which the voice of pharmaceutical companies is mostly absent.

On day two of the conference, I got the opportunity to sit down with Shwen Gwee, lead business analyst, health informatics and new media, business solutions for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and get his thoughts about AZ’s recent launch. Specifically, we talked about why, despite having a Twitter account, the company chooses not advertise its YouTube presence on it.

Gwee gives several reasons for the company’s hesitance. First, Twitter is a two-way engagement tool, meaning, as soon as you post something people can access it. Furthermore, space is limited to 140 characters, so a company’s standard press release would not fit. Finally, nobody has a full policy yet for how they want to use this online medium.

Also Twitter accounts come with adjustable settings. For example, you can set one so that people can only follow you. This doesn’t mean that messages are private, but rather that certain individuals cannot message you directly—what they send you could be viewed by anyone. “The biggest challenge people face with corporate communications is its standardized-process type of review. Twitter is a new medium for putting a template out there; unlike a press release, you will get responses—it’s not a broadcast.”

Gwee noted Novartis and Boelinger Ingelheim’s transparency on Twitter: “The important thing is that they are on there,” he says. “I definitely see a trend for pharma adopting Twitter, and I think it will come from corporate communications. First, pharma has to remember that it is not just another broadcast mechanism, it’s a conversation.”

One tip Gwee has for pharma companies is to start internally. There are several Twitter tools that a company can try within its organization before opening up to the rest of the world.

For a review of 19 enterprise-level microsharing tools (aka Twitter!), check out Yammer at www.yammer.com or the Pistachio consultant blog at http://pistachioconsulting.com