Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17223

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Kresge N
Bayer Meets Nintendo as Drugmakers Seek New Routes to Customers
Bloomberg.com 2010 Feb 11
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aX44HEtnF8cE

Full text:

Nintendo Co. and Apple Inc. are helping drugmakers find new ways to get their products to customers as health-policy changes and new technologies force them to move beyond traditional marketing methods, audit firm Ernst & Young said in a report today.

Bayer AG, Germany’s biggest pharmaceutical company, has hooked its Didget glucometer to Nintendo’s video-gaming devices to encourage children with diabetes to monitor their blood sugar regularly. Johnson & Johnson is working with Apple to create an iPhone application that allows patients to upload and share their glucometer data.

The partnerships are examples of how drugmakers are enlisting the help of technology, food, insurance and retail companies as they rethink their marketing strategies, according to the report. Global drug sales growth will probably be limited to 4 percent to 7 percent through 2013 as patent expirations on some of the industry’s biggest drugs open the door for lower- priced generics, according to research firm IMS Health Inc.

“It’s an opportunity to have a very vivid imagination,” Carolyn Buck-Luce, Ernst & Young’s global pharmaceutical sector leader, said in a telephone interview. “It’s not enough to have your focus on the discovery, research and development of medicine. You also need to be involved in the innovation of the commercial model of your business, which is how do you get these medicines to the patient.”

Health-policy changes, new media, and customers accustomed to using the Internet to seek out information for themselves are driving the shift, according to the report. Ernst & Young interviewed top business development executives from 24 companies, 11 of which are among the world’s 15 biggest drugmakers.

In the survey, 92 percent of respondents said they expected new medical technology, mobile and electronic health companies to be the most likely new partners for drugmakers. Half of the executives said they expected deals to be more challenging as non-traditional partners come together.

Partnerships, joint ventures and collaborative networks among several companies are more likely than acquisitions, Buck- Luce said.