Wealth can’t buy health, but can technology? Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, thinks it can and is using the search engine to try to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, which his genes say he has an 80% chance of getting. Online clinical trial recruitment and health research is already progressing at an impressive rate, but this is different, and could end up being an important model for pharma and healthcare industry.
Posts Tagged ‘pharma online’
Google’s search for Parkinson’s cure: A role-model for pharma
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010We’re becoming an ‘appy nation
Thursday, July 1st, 2010It seems that no business is truly innovative unless they have a novel way of reaching out to their customers. Recently, Apple’s iPhone applications have opened up a new world of reference tools, games and ways to interact with each other. However, apps in the health space are a more exciting and potentially life saving prospect with medical reference guides, diagnosis tools and live GP consultations (coming to an iPhone near you soon).
3D technology: Nostalgic fad or innovative tool for healthcare communications?
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010On Saturday the Sun newspaper was printed in 3D, with free glasses. Last year Channel 4 had 3D week. And now World Cup matches will be showed in 3D in your local boozer. The trend is obviously pretty big, although it’s been around before (remember the eighties?) so is likely to dip in a year or two, if not sooner. However, that is not to say the technology isn’t effective if applied well. So here are a few ideas about how to utilise 3D technology in healthcare communications…
Web applications for internal pharma comms
Friday, May 21st, 2010The latest pharmaphorum blog post discusses how operating in silos can restrict great ideas from coming to fruition in pharma. Mike Rea writes that “solo within a silo, unable to see what everyone else is doing, you are forced to guess (or presume) what the other silos need of you, or to guess what it is that they know that you need to know. And, if you knew it all already, or were capable of going it alone, those other silos wouldn’t really be needed…” Internal communications is where this lives or dies, and while the big debate when it comes to social media and pharma rests in how pharma can engage external audiences, innovation comes from within. So how can pharma use web applications to improve internal comms?
Digital pharma: Innovation is possible with an open, community focused approach
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010The PM Society’s Digital Update meeting held last week made it clear we might be waiting some time for official guidance from the PMCPA on what pharma can do online, with no changes to the ABPI Code confirmed any time soon. As Dominic Tyer outlines in his InPharm article, the reasons for this are directly linked to wider legislative issues. However, there are clear but unofficial ‘suggestions’ as to what pharma could legitimately explore online which could help guide a path to innovation – a value most forward-looking businesses aspire to, pharma included.
HealthMap shows the potential for mash-ups in healthcare marketing
Thursday, May 6th, 2010If you haven’t already seen it, HealthMap is an excellent example of a ‘mash-up’ in action. In this case, varied data sources are fed into a specific Google Maps page, so the code and data is ‘mashed up’ as it were. The result is a map showing the latest data and reports of infectious disease outbreaks all over the world. So why is this so exciting?
Online networks for HCPs booming
Thursday, April 29th, 2010The healthcare marketing bods on Twitter are all getting excited about news that Doctors.Net saw record levels of doctor engagement last year with 25 million unique web sessions in 2009. This is largely owed to discussion forum activity on swine flu, and the trust doctors have in the site as a closed network. So what else is out there, and what are the opportunities for communications activities?
Dose of Digital Dosie awards
Thursday, April 8th, 2010The Dose of Digital ‘Dosie’ Awards focus on finding the best uses of social media in pharma and healthcare. There are 9 categories for this year’s awards, and finalists have all been chosen. The deadline for voting is next Wednesday 14 April so get voting!
Apps to outsell CDs by 2012
Thursday, March 18th, 2010According to an independent study, apps will be worth $17.5bn in 2012, compared to only $13.83bn in CD sales. But what does this mean market saturation or an increasing appetite for ever more varied apps? And where does pharma sit in this rapidly moving technology?
EU to liberalise drug info for patients?
Monday, January 25th, 2010The incoming EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli, has said “patients have the right to proper information on prescribed medicines” and pledged to re-assess the current directive to “bring more patient’s perspective in the proposal”. While there are opponents of the move to liberalise patient information in France, Germany and Spain, several other EU member states approve, including the UK, Denmark and Sweden. So what are the hurdles?
