Bringing Home the Gold
Blue Diesel (Columbus, OH), an inVentiv Health subsidiary, was honored three times at the 2009 Summit International Awards recognizing small and midsize advertising and other creative companies around the world with annual billings under $30 million. Submissions from 26 countries were judged on the strength of the idea, the quality of execution, and the ability to persuade. Blue Diesel won Gold in the Healthcare/Medicine Website category for work on its parent company’s website, www.inventivhealth.com. The agency took home the Bronze in the B2B Product Website category for Homediagnostics.com, which helps people manage their diabetes. A second Bronze was awarded to Blue Diesel in the Education Website category for Merck’s Rotavirusinfo.com, which provides facts, risk factors, and prevention methods for the highly contagious stomach virus.

Go Green
CARE Media Holdings (Tampa, FL) is doing its part to save the environment by eliminating the need for printed brochures. The media company’s PetCARE TV, KidCARE TV, and Women’s HealthCARE TV deliver advertiser-supported educational healthcare programming in the waiting rooms of veterinarian, pediatrician, and OB/GYN offices throughout North America. Beginning June 1, viewers interested in an advertiser’s product or service shown on screen can text in a code and receive a 164-character message with instructions how to get more detailed information online. This new paperless program will reduce the clutter of printed materials in doctors’ offices, while providing pharmaceutical companies with a way to reach consumers electronically at no additional fee. “Today’s consumers are getting their information from nontraditional outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, predominantly through electronic devices like PDAs and cell phones,” explains CEO Philip M. Cohen of CARE Media. “Our research shows that today’s time-constrained women are spending very little time reading brochures and mailers.”

Med Device Development
Subscription-based online community e-Zassi.com (Fernandina Beach, FL) has launched new software to speed the process of developing and commercializing medical devices. The online platform can provide decision makers with a new technology’s probable regulatory classifications, clinical endpoints to support safety and marketing claims, early-stage prediction of reimbursement and market environment, and identification of material manufacturing, distribution, and sales burdens. “We recognize the value of gaining deep insights as early as possible into any new medical innovation development and commercialization requirements, which are uniquely calculated by the e-Zassi Innovation Assessment Technology,” said CEO Peter M. von Dyck. “Not knowing critical details can dramatically hinder a technology from ever being successfully funded, licensed, developed, or commercialized.”

Website Launch
Dudnyk (Horsham, PA), a healthcare marketing and medical advertising agency, has showcased its creative work on the newly launched www.dudnyk.com. The site highlights the agency’s portfolio and case studies, including its “Tame the Flame” campaign for Durezol, the first commercial product launched by Sirion Therapeutics. This topical ophthalmic steroid is the only FDA-approved treatment for postoperative ocular inflammation and pain. The campaign uses the image of a flaming meteor being extinguished by Durezol to emphasize the power of this new treatment.

Forecasting Tools
TVG (Dresher, PA), a global healthcare marketing research, training, and strategic consulting firm and subsidiary of PDI, launched a suite of new forecasting services to help predict share and revenue for new products. The TVG Rapid Share Predictor provides patient share and uptake rates without the use of analogs or primary market research. The TVG Custom Share Predictor evaluates market share and provides an evaluation of potential product use. The TVG Forecaster projects revenues using key inputs such as market sizing information, pricing, compliance/persistence, and competitive landscape data and can be updated with secondary data.

U.S. Rights Sold
GlaxoSmithKline (London, U.K.) is selling full commercial rights to antidepressant Wellbutrin XL in the United States to the Canadian drug maker Biovail for $510 million. While Biovail developed Wellbutrin XL, Glaxo has distributed the medication in the United States since September 2003. Glaxo will retain rights for the drug in every country except the U.S. and Canada. Sales of the drug during this year’s first quarter in the U.S. are down 70% from a year ago due to generic competition. Glaxo is seeking to re-engineer its U.S. operations since it reported a 13% drop in first-quarter net profit because of the poor performance of its U.S. pharmaceutical business. Part of its new plan was the recent purchase of Stiefel Laboratories, a U.S. dermatology company, for $2.9 billion.

ROI Analysis
SDI (Plymouth Meeting, PA) now offers rapid feedback on market response to both patient and prescriber promotional campaigns. Its Promotion Response Solutions assess metrics for acquisition, conversion, retention, and prescribing behavior following promotional initiatives, with analyses delivered in as little as 10 days. The Promotion Response Solutions are HIPAA-compliant and use SDI’s patented patient de-identification process, which removes compliance risk for clients. “At SDI, privacy is at the core of our operation,” says Bob Doyle, Vice President of Consumer Insights and Marketing. “SDI has a long and credible history of managing billions of de-identified patient records.” The service also features access to SDI’s 100 data sources and 200 million unique patients and the ability to segment by payment channel such as Medicare or Medicaid.

Distribution Deal
SpectraScience, a San Diego-based medical device manufacturer, is partnering with Krainer Medtechnik (Vienna, Austria) to distribute the WavSTAT Optical Biopsy System in Germany and Austria. This GI cancer diagnostic system performs optical biopsies using spectrophotometry to determine if tissue is normal, precancerous, or cancerous. WavSTAT can also be used during surgery to determine if all cancerous tissue has been removed and to help prevent a second surgery.

inVentiv Consolidates
inVentiv Health (Somerset, NJ) announced that its Strategy and Analytics division is consolidating four businesses into a single operation under the new name inVentiv Advance Insights. The four units are CHS, Health Products Research, Strategyx, and Ventiv Access Group. The new structure will realign services to focus on Market Research and Commercial Analytics, Global Commercialization, and Managed Markets. Norman Stalsberg is president of the new group.

WHO Tamiflu Donation
Roche (Basel, Switzerland) is donating 5.65 million packets of its anti-viral medicine Tamiflu to the World Health Organization to replenish the U.N. agency’s stockpiles, which were depleted in response to the outbreak of swine flu in poor countries. Roche has been working closely with governments to fill their Tamiflu orders and continues to ramp up its manufacturing output to meet growing demand. The company can increase production of the drug from 22 million packets to 35 million packets a month.

New Shades
Congdon (Greenwich, CT) developed the brand strategy and design for the recent launch of Transitions SOLFX, a new sun lens technology. “The results they delivered exceeded our high expectations,” said Cathy Rauscher, Global Marketing Manager of Sunwear at Transitions. SOLFX lenses enhance vision by automatically adjusting the degree of darkness to compensate for changes in outdoor light conditions. The lenses are available in both prescription and nonprescription forms.m
—Andrew Matthius

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