Leveraging Social Media for Pharmaceutical Companies - Synthesio

Leveraging Social Media for Pharmaceutical Companies Realized by Synthesio

Summary Introduction .2 Social media and the new health paradigm.3 Millions of online consumer conversations to explore.4 Detecting and reacting to secondary effects.5 A super-‐regulated environment that limits digital initiatives.6 Best practices for laboratories .7 Conclusion .8

Synthesio – Leveraging social media for the health sector – December 2010

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Introduction

20% of the content generated by Internet users mentions health in some way. According to Pew Internet Research, 60% of « connected » people use Internet as their first source of information about health-‐related matters. This natural tendancy of patients, their families, and their doctors to express their opinions on certain subjects arises certain interests among pharmaceutical laboratories searching for customer feedback. The thousands of conversations published each day on social networks, like blogs or forums have an essential role for these professionals seeking to better understand the desires of their demanding customers. The main issue of these laboratories is being able to participate in virtual focus groups while respecting the rule of this super-‐regulated environment.


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Social media and the new health paradigm Social media responds to a primary need for safety People behave online as they do in “real life”. In a recent survey, Forrester made an interesting correlation between the Maslow hierarchy of needs and what motivates people to share content online. According to the analysis, people join online communities and share with others to fulfill a need for safety ; this is the second level in the Maslow hierarchy of needs. Many people wishing to socialize converse on online forums, Facebook or Twitter to ask for or look for advice, gain experience and particularly to be reassured about their health condition. Thus, it was not surprising to find out that 10% of all the comments published using social media mention the word HELP.

A new relationship between patients, physicians and the web The exponential growth at which content is being published each day on social media has had a significant impact on the relationships formerly established among physicians, laboratories, and their patients. The latter now use the Internet to search for information about their symptoms before going to a doctor. They readily visit sites suchas Doctissimo or PatientsLikeMe in order to diagnose themselves using information published by other Internet users. Labs, clinics, hospitals, and physicians find themselves increasingly meeting with patients that are overinformed that visit their doctors with a pre-‐formed idea of their pains, associated treatments and the medications most often used. In this context of sur-‐information, professionals’ reputations have come under attack. In 2010, new social platforms such as Vitals.com even allow patients to grade their physician’s practice. Forced to adapt to this new mode of consumption of medical information, some chose to meet up in virtual communities (like docboards.com) to exchange between health professionals and have new information on diseases, their evolution, and patient expectations.


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Millions of patient feedback comments to explore Super focus groups Thousands of patients and doctors talk with each other on a massive scale on networks created specifically for pains such as cancer, depression, or diabetes. They join together and form “super focus groups” to share their experiences with the disease and its associated treatments. These new media provide an opportunity for marketing directors to create intimate long term relationships with consumers that they can only get a hint of through traditional focus groups. By using social media as a source of customer feedback, laboratories can also overcome the structural costs related to traditional focus groups (responsible forrecruitment, infrastructure, personnel costs) and benefit from a clear vision of the complex trends and expectations of your customers at a lower overall cost.

A source of inspiration for targeted marketing content Diverse barriers tied to social image or the fear of expressing your feelings publicly don’t exist on online forums on which anonymous identities are still used. This allows patients to share their reflections and questions that they might not think to or dare to share with their doctor. Feedback from patients identified are more sincere on the Internet as they are not subject to the bias of questions asked by researchers. Exploration of these conversations provides a better understanding of language and phrases used by patients that can be used by laboratories to develop more effective marketing materials (packaging, digital communication, etc..) targeting both physicians and their patients.

Case study : The milk lobby Milk often has a negative online reputation due to environmental concerns and worries about allergies and organic vs. genetically-‐modified milk. The milk lobby began monitoring and has since discovered new insights on customers’ needs. The results were surprising for them : They first noticed that 70% of the content was provided by women worried about their children’s health. Several topics reported as important in their last “traditional” surveys were not well-‐represented (eg environmental issues), while other topics that they weren’t expecting were well-‐represented (eg “weight-‐loss diets” and milk were associated). They hired a community manager to work side-‐by-‐ side with a nutritionist to provide consumers with up-‐to-‐date information on milk’s benefits and conveniences.


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Detecting and handling adverse events online The impact of social media on adverse events When putting into place a social media monitoring system, laboratories must be absolutely ready to discover adverse events that must be communicated to the authorities. Recent studies reveal that the percentage of conversations reporting side effects varies between 0.2% (Nielsen Survey 2008) and 7% (Survey Patientlikeme 2010). These low percentages are due mainly to the difficulty in finding all 4 criteria that define an adverse event on social media (citing drug name, brand, identity of the patient and his/her prescribing doctor). However, given the large volume of discussions published every day, we can assume that some drugs with dozens of side effects will be identified daily. In practice, the detection of new side effects is much rarer. Indeed, in over 2 years of active watches for large laboratories, Synthesio has only identified two adverse events that created a major crisis for the brand. In both cases, these side effects were identified simultaneously on other channels (doctors, the FDA, patients, etc..), but social media represented over 60% of all content published surrounding the crisis.

Facilitating the detection of adverse events The process for detecting adverse events must be prepared well in advance of any monitoring. It requires close collaboration between analysts that are sifting through published discussions on products and services and your communications responsible for communicating about side effects. A simple system of automatic alerts based on chosen keywords allows the department in charge of pharmacovigilance to take the necessary measures quickly.

Anticipating a crisis In the midst of a communications crisis, each statement has to abide by a lengthy list of regulations that cannot let a Pharma company respond quickly and be as transparent as social media “rules” would like them to be. This leaves little room for a Pharma company to say what they would like in a crisis situation and they must be prepared by putting a social media crisis plan into place a before the “fire” happens : • Know what can and cannot be said on social media • Define which people will be alerted when a “fire” occurs • Identify key opinion leaders: both advocates and detractors • Analyze which areas, products and countries are susceptible to a crisis • Define the right KPI’s to measure the evolution of the crisis over time as well as the impact of your communication

UCB, a community for epilepsy PatientsLikeMe is a leading US social website with which UCB partnered to launch a patient community for epilepsy. This platform created particularly for people with epilepsy enables UCB to better understand patients, their day-‐to-‐day lives and treatment experiences. UCB is also taking the lead in providing patients with more information about the disease. The program was also designed to capture and report adverse events associated with approved UCB epilepsy therapies to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Learn more: http://www.patientslikeme.com/epilepsy/community Synthesio – Leveraging social media for the health sector – December 2010

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A super-‐regulated environment that limits digital initiatives

An extremely regulated environment limits certain initiatives Over the past few years, the few creative initiatives for virtual communities on networks like Twitter or Facebook have become heavily criticized. These media promote real-‐time responses that is incompatible with strict legal regulations of laboratories. This environment, severely regulated, leaves little room for strategies such as those that worked for Novartis or Sanofi-‐Aventis.

Novartis, Tasigna’s Facebook page ruled to be illegal Norvatis set up a Facebook page for its new drug Tasigna, designed to treat leukemia. In 2010, the FDA sent a letter to the laboratory in order to report a misuse of Facebook's sharing tool. According to the FDA, "the shared content is misleading because it highlights the effectiveness of Tasigna without communicating the risks of using this drug. "

Sanofi Voices, a charter for controlling content created by users Sanofi Voices is a network of employees, retirees and partners of the brand that decided to use Facebook as their communication platform. Soon after launch, the page was taken over by consumers reporting adverse events. The company had not put moderation policies into place and began by unadeptly deleting critical comments before tardively deciding to publish a comment directly from Sanofi Voices on behalf of all products sold by the group.


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Best practices for laboratories The race for disease oriented online spaces began in 2008. Brand-‐sponsored or not, these discussion spaces are popular among patients and families that are attracted by the brand. Certain labs have even come to create their own platforms to which numerous patients flock in search of information about their illness. We often find medical research in these spaces, indications of different treatments that are avilable, as well as a forum of co-‐helping for sick people.

Parle avec elle, breast cancer site, France Parle avec elle is a community site for breast cancer. Thanks to a collective blog and several forums, the platform has maintained a convivial atmosphere. The community is animated by Sophie, a community manager and author of a personal blog Femmes avant tout that is clearly marked as being in a partnership with Roche. The sentiment of belonging to a community is reinforced by photos of recently connected members. Find out more : http://www.parleavecelles.fr/

Children with Diabetes, USA In 2008 Johnson & Johnson purchased this site for a reported amount of $6 million. Children with diabetes is an online community for parents, children, adults, and families living with type 1 diabetes. The site offers advice from health professionals, gives updates on research progress and provide care suggestions. A forum with over 600,000 conversations is available for visitors. Learn more: http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/

CML Earth CML Earth is a social network for patients suffering from chronic myelogenous leukemia. It enables people from around the world to gather in a single space and share about their lives with the disease. The site has interesting geolocalization features that allow people who gather virtually to find their peers that are around them physically. Learn more: http://www.cmlearth.com More case studies are available here: Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki

Diabetes in 6 countries Interested in diabetes, a major Pharma brand wanted to listen to online conversations to identify new insights around diabetes in 6 countries. An in-‐depth listening of social media uncovered several new trends that had not yet been identified. Surprisingly, most discussions were about insulin devices rather than the disease, itself. Pumps and pens were the main source of concern of recently diagnosed patients who were struggling to find the best device option for themselves. Using these results, the brand reported that their goal is to work on new materials for physicians and patients on how to cope with the disease by answering simple questions such as: How to choose a device? What are recent improvements in research?, etc. Synthesio – Leveraging social media for the health sector – December 2010

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Conclusion Adverse events, suggestions for product optimization, emerging trends or potential crises are identifiable via social networks. The main issue is being able to separate the gold from the rest and reducing the time between data collection and its internal processing. Appropriate communication in real time involving different departments (marketing,communications, press relations, legal) can transform onilne consumer feedback into real-‐time marketing efforts.

About Synthesio Synthesio is a global, multi-‐lingual Social Media Monitoring and research company, utilizing a powerful hybrid of tech and human monitoring services to help Brands and Agencies collect and analyze consumer conversations online. The result is actionable analytics and insights that provide an accurate snapshot of a brand and helps answer the ultimate questions – how are we really doing right now, and how can we make it better. Founded in 2006, the company has grown to include analysts who provide native-‐language monitoring and analytic services in over 30 languages worldwide. Brands such as Toyota, Microsoft, Sanofi, Accor, Orange and many other well-‐known companies turn to Synthesio for the data they need to engage their markets, anticipate and prepare for emerging crisis situations, and prepare for new product or new campaign launches. In 2010, Synthesio continued its rapid growth, launching offices in the United Kingdom and the United States to keep up with demand Synthesio – Leveraging social media for the health sector – December 2010

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