Regular readers of Pharma Marketing Blog are familiar with Emily Jameson, aka “FDA Intern” and “PhRMA Intern.” Emily has moved on to accept a position with a leading pharma interactive media agency and is now Social Media Intern ! We’ve watched Emily’s career progress from her internship at PhRMA, which hired her fresh out college because she was related to one of PhRMA’s VPs, to her stint at FDA where she was instrumental in nudging that organization to call for a public hearing on the regulation of social media. It’s only natural, therefore, that Emily has ended up on the agency side of the business where she will be able to directly serve the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, which seems to need all the help it can get these days in terms of avoiding social media faux pas.

Shirley Ledlie, aka “Ann Adams”, “Julie Kahn”, “Jasper Boon”, and who-knows-how-many-more-phony-FB-aliases — the patient who claims sanofi-aventis (S-A) mislead her about the side effects of cancer drug Taxotere (see ” sanofi aventis Feels the Social Media Pain. But Is It Authentic? “) — is laying siege to S-A’s VOICES Facebook page .

It’s clear that more and more companies are getting the green light from their leadership teams to get started in social media.

ePharma boosters see the latest direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising spending numbers as a positive sign that the drug industry is finally increasing its allotment to the Internet in its DTC marketing budget. Nielsen data indicate that “spending on Internet ads, which has doubled over the last five years, hit $117.4 million, up 31 percent” (see ” Drugmakers boost consumer ad spending 2 pct in ‘09 “). Total DTC spending increased 1.9% in 2009 vs.

When it comes to social media, Yahoo and Google have differing strategies but both work well.

Title: Leverage Facebook to Improve Brand Awareness and Promote Patient AdvocacyDate: Wednesday, March 24, 2010Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDTRegister here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/241889944Mention priority code P1606W1Twitter/BlogAbout the web seminar:In this web seminar, you’ll hear how McNeil Pediatrics created 2 successful Facebook communities ADHD MomsTM and ADHD AlliesTM, to

Ockham’s Razor: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate; “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.” The principle gives precedence to simplicity; of two competing theories, the simplest explanation of an entity is to be preferred.

Merck submitted comments to Docket No. FDA‐2009‐N‐0441 regarding Promotion of FDA‐Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools ( find it here )

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A while back I wrote a post called “ 8 Tips to Help You Own YouTube’s Search Results .” I wrote that post for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons was because I was very disappointed by many of the videos that showed up at the top of YouTube searches for health-related topics. For pharma and healthcare companies, physicians, and consumers, these videos can be classified as nothing but scary.