3 PharmaVOICE J u l y 2 00 3 PUBLISHER Lisa Banket EDITOR Taren Grom CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marah Walsh DIRECTOR OF SALES Darlene Kwiatkowski MANAGING EDITOR Denise Myshko CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Elisabeth Pena Kim Ribbink Lynda Sears Copyright 2003 by PharmaLinx LLC, Titusville, NJ Printed in the U.S.A. Volume Three, Number Seven PharmaVOICE is published 12 times per year by PharmaLinx LLC, P.O.Box 327, Titusville, NJ 08560. Postmaster: Send address changes to PharmaVOICE P.O. Box 327, Titusville, NJ 08560. PharmaVOICECoverage and Distribution: Domestic subscriptions are available at $160 for one year (12 issues). Foreign subscriptions: 12 issues US$330. Contact PharmaVOICE at P.O. Box 327, Titusville, NJ 08560. Call us at 609.730.0196 or FAX your order to 609.730.0197. Contributions: PharmaVOICE is not responsible for unsolicited contributions of any type. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, PharmaVOICE retains all rights on material published in PharmaVOICE for a period of six months after publication and reprint rights after that period expires. Email: [email protected]. Change of address: Please allow six weeks for achange of address. Send your new address along with your sub scription label to PharmaVOICE, P.O. Box 327, Titusville, NJ 08560. Call us at 609.730.0196 or FAX your change to 609.730.0197. Email: [email protected]. IMPORTANT NOTICE: The post office will not forward copies of this magazine. PharmaVOICE is not respon sible for replacing undelivered copies due to lack of or late notification of address change. Advertising in PharmaVOICE: To advertise in Pharma VOICEplease contact our Advertising Department at P.O.Box 327, Titusville, NJ 08560, or telephone us at 609.730.0196. Email: [email protected]. www.pharmavoice.com THE FORUM FOR THE INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE Volume 3 . Number 7 Send your letters to feedback@pharma voice.com. Please include your name, title, company, and business phone number. Let ters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity. All submissions become the property of PharmaLinx LLC. Letters very company has a br and, regardless of whether it works to build that br and. But, how a company builds that brand will det ermine the value generated from its efforts . According experts at CoreBrand, com panies that build the brand consciously and carefully can create significant value for the brand as it relates to market capital. Using a statistical model, CoreBrand determined that each one of the top 10 most valuable corporate brands in the pharmaceutical industry contributes more than $1 billion to each respective company’s overall market valuation. The top three in the category — Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Merck — contribute more than $9 billion each to its company’s market valuation. (For more information, see page 18.) J&J, Pfizer, and Merck may be setting the bar, but other pharmaceutical and life sciences companies — longestablished entities and startups — are recognizing the traction that a strong corporate identity can bring to their overall initiatives. And, in light of recent megamergers, companies such as Novartis are employing a master brand strategy to increase awareness. “For a company, especially after a merg er, it is important to establish a strong brand name,” says Thomas Ebeling, CEO of Novartis Pharma. “And frankly, Novartis is not yet such an American household name as Pfizer and Merck so it’s important that customers quickly identify Novartis and associate positive attributes to the name. Companies have to earn the customer’s trust and make sure that they are credible and that their activities with patients and physi cians meet and substantiate their claims.” According to Maxim Waldbaum, partner and chair of the intellectual property group at Salans, for some pharmaceutical compa nies, such as Pfizer, the key to developing a successful corporate brand is developing a strong product brand. “Pfizer has been quite successful in build ing its corporate identity through its mar keting of Viagra,” he says. “But, most would not be able to identify ScheringPlough as the manufacturer of Claritin.” Other companies have developed a mas ter brand as way to reposition themselves in the market as their product lines expand and the company’s direction shifts. According to Carolyn Castel, executive director of corporate communications at Serono, in the early years, the company was defined by a single product — Pergonal, a fertility drug. But, as the company began to grow and expand into different therapeutic areas, such as growth hormone therapies for pediatric growth disorders and for AIDS wasting, and, more recently, into neurology, equating Serono to a single brand was no longer an appropriate tactic. “We needed to evaluate how the com pany as a whole could begin to leverage its brands and how the brands could leverage the company,” she says. “Additionally, as the company began producing recombi nant versions of its drugs, it transformed into a biotechnology company.” According to Martha Bowman, executive VP of marketing at DeLor, there isn’t a phar ma company out there that doesn’t have a cor porate position, it’s just how actively executives communicate it and how deeply executives weave it into the whole organization. “Some companies, such as Merck and Pfizer, consistently have spent money over the years to build leadership by having the best salesforces, the best investor relations, a line up of strong wellknown products,” she says. “But even these companies are missing the boat by not more clearly estab lishing the connection between the compa ny and where its expertise is, and the prod ucts that support that expertise.” Taren Grom Editor Webuilt the Serono corporate brand first by using our original products.As we widened our product base into other therapeutic areas we defined our new corporate image. Now,the corporate brand supports those product brands,and vice versa. E
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