NEW HEALTHCARE RELATED PRODUCTS, SERVICES, AND COMPANIES
Dorland Sweeney Jones Health Communications is reaffirming its position as a leader in global health communications and creating a power brand by simplifying its name and organizational structure. The agency has returned to its original name, Dorland.Founded in 1883,Dorland is the third oldest continually operating advertising agency in the U.S., with offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco. “We decided to return to our original name,Dor land, because wewant a contemporary brand name that reflects the nature of our agency,” says Rita F. Sweeney, president and chief operating officer. “In short, we want a power brand, and Dorland, one of the first global agencies, has more than 100 years of history spanning three centuries. The changes we are making reaf firm our position as a leader in healthcare communications, and our new logo will visually represent our global capabili ties.” Along with the new name and brand mark, Dorland is implementing organizational changes that align the agen cy’s core strengths into three distinct strategic business units. Richard T. Minoff, who recently joined Dorland, is president of Dorland Pharma. Kate Maguire,who has been at the agency more than 20 years, is president of Dorland Solutions. Nancy Bacher Long, an 11year veteran of the agency, is president of Dorland Public Relations. The agency continues to offer integrated services, including public relations, marketing communications, medical communications, and strategic consulting. The updated structure validates the increasing role of Dor land’s senior management, and the centralized business model provides organized leadership and integrated ser vices. As client needs evolve, additional services may be added under the Dorland umbrella brand, which will be headed by Ms.Sweeney. Mr. Minoff, who has more than two decades of pharma ceutical marketing experi ence, is responsible for grow ing the pharmaceutical communications business with emphasis on strategic planning and medical education services. Most recently, Mr. Minoff was executive VP and director at Interlink Healthcare Communications. Ms. Maguire manages a wide range of diagnostic,device,biotechnology,and phar maceutical clients. Ms. Long is responsible for Dor land’s global network affiliation with Public Relations Organisation International, a network of indepen dent agencies across the world. SAS and Phase Forward COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT simplifies CLINICALTRIAL DATA COLLECTION The time to market for drug development maybe shortened bya strategic alliance between SASandPhase Forward. SAS is developing an interface for the SAS Drug Development biomedical informatics platform to operate with Phase Forward’s clinicaldata management system, the Clintrial solution.The combined solution streamlines, automates, and simplifies the process of collecting, cleaning, and analyzing clinicaltrial data. This helps shorten the time to market for drug development by increasing clinical throughput and reducing devel opment costs. “Pharmaceutical companies need to reduce the number of disparate, fragmented systems and implement standardized processes with clinical R&D operations,”says Steve Shaha,CEO of the Institute for Integrated Out comes,a technology analyst firm that specializes in the pharmaceutical industry. “ These two challenges remain major roadblocks to the efficiencies needed to succeed in the evolving industry. This alliance represents a genuine break through in enabling pharmaceutical companies to break out of archaic and confining systems for faster, more costeffective processing.” Aggregating validated clinicaltrial data from multiple sources, such as elec tronic datacapture systems, inhouse clinical datamanagement systems (CDMS),and labs is difficult and timeconsuming. By using the SAS Drug Development platform,customers can integrate data easily from the Clintrial system and disparate sources into a common informa tion repository,where researchers can quickly analyze single or multistudy data to gain greater insight into their drugdevelopment program.This means that customers can more thoroughly analyze data earlier in the research process and stop research programs faster, redirect efforts, or make the decision to maintain course. The joint offering also builds in a level of regulatory compliance that is typi cally absent or addressed only through timeconsuming paperwork.By building in a defined interface for the transmission and maintenance of electronic records between the two complianceenabling solutions the integrity of the data are automatically documented. “This alliance provides the integrated technology for accelerating research in the pharmaceutical industry, saving companies money and bringing drugs to market faster,” says Zul Abbany, VP of alliance development at SAS. “Phase For ward’s CDMS solutions bring the data in from the research sites, and SAS brings it together for analysis and submission.Customers led the charge for this alliance, which is a natural fit for both organizations and the pharmaceutical industry.” DORLAND SWEENEY JONES CHANGES name and organizational structure Going back to its roots, the healthcare agency has returned to its original name,Dorland. In addition, the agency is aligning its core strengths into three distinct strategic business units — Dorland Pharma,Dorland Solutions,and Dorland Public Relations Dorland’s three business units are headed by Rich Minoff, Dorland Pharma; Kate Maguire, Dorland Solutions; and Nancy Bacher Long, Dorland Public Relations. Zul Abbany, SAS, VP of alliance development, says the combination of Phase Forward’s CDMS solutions with SAS’ platform for analysis and submission will help accelerate research — saving companies time and money in bringing drugs to market. 64 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 2 PharmaVOICE WHAT’S new SPECIALTY PR UNIT LAUNCHED in response to global trends in the healthcare industry Chandler Chicco Agency, a healthcare public relations firm, has launched Biosector 2 with dual headquarters in New York and London. Biosector 2 focuses on a range of companies specializing in biotechnology,drug discovery,medical devices,drug delivery, and healthcare services as well as on spe cialty pharmaceutical companies. The new unit offers counseling in areas such as investor relations, public policy, marketing,and regulatory affairs. In establishing Biosector 2,Chandler Chicco prin cipals say they are following the path of innovation in medicine. The company cites two recent reports high lighting globalization of the biotechnology industry and heralding biotechnology as “the next big indus trial thing.” According to an Ernst & Young report — Beyond Borders: Global Biotechnology Report 2002 — globalization is a phenomenon with 1,800 new firms in Europe versus 1,100 in the U.S. Additionally, countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and Australia are making significant investments in biotechnology. “ The time is right for Chandler Chicco to intro duce Biosector 2,” says Bob Chandler, CCA principal. “We believe these companies have highly special ized needs and, to address them, we’re borrowing from the experience wehave in the traditional phar maceutical marketplace.The diversity of these com panies provides a significant opportunity, but the complexity of this marketplace must be recognized and respected. “ The challenge is to help the general public understand the promise of the science, to make the investment community see the value of what’s being offered, and to provide policy makers and news media with the proper tools to recognize our clients’ contributions to society. This is the key mis sion of Biosector 2,” he adds. Agency principals expect that Biosector 2 fees will reach $1.5 million in its first year and anticipate closing 2002 with a staff of 12. “Recent mergers among the largest biotech/IR firms have left a void in our industry,” says Gianfran co Chicco, CCA principal. “Only a handful of small specialist firms are left, but not one can provide our level of strategic counsel with global big pharma experience to the most promising new stars in the healthcare industry.” Biosector 2 offers a multitude of services, includ ing corporate and product positioning, branding, investor relations/financial communications, crisis and issues management,policy and regulatory rela tions, advertising, internal communications, and strategic counsel. SMARTPAPERTECHNOLOGY COMBINES PAPERWITH EDC to reduce drugdevelopment timeline Health Decisions Inc. is offering MiCo’s MiForms technology to its pharmaceutical customers as part of its solution for rapid clinicaltrial data collection, processing, and analysis. The combined offering, known as SmartPaper, allows responses to be recorded simultaneously on paper and electronical ly, combining the ease of paper with the speed and accuracy of electronics. Compared with paper forms that 95% of clinical trials still use,SmartPaper reduces data entry time by 68%,allowing better study management. “Despite recent efforts at electronic data collec tion in the industry, an ongoing difficulty continues to be collecting data in a way that does not interfere with patient interviews,” says Michael Rosenberg, M.D.,MPH, president and CEO of Health Decisions. “Although technology is in the forefront of drug develop ment, sometimes doctors prefer old fashioned methods because it works better for them.” According to Health Decisions, clinicians often find that EDC is impracti cal,often actually hindering their work because they are used to the ease of keeping notes on paper. “The MiCo approach combines the ease of dealing with paper with the ability to immediately process and transmit data as they are collected from patients,”Mr. Rosenberg says.“The resulting hybrid system is consider ably easier than either paper or electronic systems and has not been offered before in this industry.” Drugdevelopment costs are estimated at $800 million and 12 years to get a new product to market.Com panies believe that this reflects the degree of difficulty in the development process. “Our research indicates that new tools, especially technology tools, may be misused because they are over ly complex,”says Jim Clary, president of MiCo.“Our product,which is basically a clipboard and a piece of paper, easily can be used by everyone in the drugdevelopment industry.” Health Decisions’ SmartPaper, powered by MiCo, is a paper form that simultaneously provides an electronic record, thereby combining the ease of use of paper with the speed and accuracy of electronics. Partnership brings SOPHISTICATED MSE TOOLS to the pharmaceutical market Proscape Technologies and InfoLogix are partnering to integrate and crosssell their marketing and sales effectiveness software with mobile wireless devices in the pharmaceutical, con sumer packaged goods, and financial services markets. The alliance combines InfoLogix’s mobile hardware solutions — laptops, tablet PCs,pocket PC devices,and wireless LANs andWANs — with Proscape’s MSE software solution,which integrates disparate enterprisewide marketing and sales information into a single Web envi ronment and manages marketing content across all selling channels.The combina tion is designed to help representatives present critical marketing and sales infor mation,analyze data, and develop more collaborative relationships with customers. “With our pentablet solutions, combined with Proscape software,a pharmaceu tical salesforce can make more impacting visual presentations to doctors and cap ture electronic signatures for physician sampling,” says David Gulian,president and cofounder of InfoLogix.“By making targeted, electronic sales presentations, sales people have already doubled and even tripled their exposure time in front of physi cians.” In July, Wallace Pharmaceuticals’ 304 sales representatives began using Proscape’s MSE solution.The combination of MSE software and the selection of Fujit su pentablet computers by Wallace yields the first mobile technologybased solu tion viable for use by detail representatives. In a pilot program, Proscape’s MSE solution provided Wallace’s detail representa tives with a twofold increase in the amountof time spent with physicians,ultimately helping them to increase brand awareness and influence prescribing behavior. David Gulian, president and cofounder of InfoLogix, says targeted electronic sales presentations can increase exposure time with physicians. 65 PharmaVOICE S e p t e mb e r 2 0 02 WHAT’S new nervous system clinical development programs for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology,and medicaldevice industry.For more information,visit medicaltherapeutics.com. MICO,Research Triangle Park,N.C., provides innovative endtoend solutions enabling the wireless capture, storage,and communication of form based and freeform penonpaper data for users of PDAs, handheld computers, and Smart Phones.For more information, visit micorporation.com. PHASE FORWARD INC.,Waltham,Mass.,is a provider of clinical and safety data management solutions for drug development.For more information,visit phaseforward.com. PROSCAPETECHNOLOGIES,FortWash ington, Pa., is a provider of marketing and sales effectiveness technologybased solutions that bridge the disconnect between sales and marketing, elevating the effectiveness of all selling efforts throughout the organization. For more information,visit proscape.com. SAS,Cary, N.C., is a provider of business intelligence software and services. For more information,visit sas.com. VERISPAN,Newtown,Pa.,a healthcare informatics joint venture of Quintiles Transnational Corp.and McKesson Corp., provides patientcentric, longitudinal data. For more information,visit verispan.com. Follow up CHANDLERCHICCOAGENCY,NewYork, works exclusively with the pharmaceutical/ biotech industry offering awide range of counsel, including marketing communications, issues,and crisis management,risk communications, corporate andproduct positioning, preapproval and launch campaigns, diseaseawareness programs,constituency relations,global public relations,advertising, newmedia,branding,and corporate documentary photography.For more information,visit ccapr.com. DORLAND,Philadelphia, is one of the three oldest independent agencies in U.S.The full service healthcare communications agency represents marketers of highquality health care products and services.For more information,visit dorland.com. HEALTHDECISIONS INC.,Chapel Hill, N.C., is a provider of worldwide comprehensive clinical research services to pharmaceutical, government,and nonprofit organizations. For more information,visit healthdec.com. INFOLOGIX,Bensalem,Pa., is a provider of mobile wireless computing hardware and consulting solutions to the healthcare, industrial,transportation, and supply chain management markets.For more information, visit infologixsys.com. MEDICALTHERAPEUTICS CONSULTANTSLLC,Rockville,Md., is an independent business unit of Medifacts International,which manages cardio vascular, renal,pulmonary,and central MEDIFACTS LAUNCHES CONSULTING UNIT to aid earlystage companies Medifacts International has launched Medical Therapeutics Consultants LLC, which provides early stage, valueadded clinical and product develop ment consultation to the pharmaceutical and medi caldevice industries. The new business unit accom plishes its mission through a network of alliances with physician advisors/clinicians at major academic institu tions as well as experienced industry, legal, and regulato ry professionals. Dr. Doug Cowart, execu tive director and chief oper ating officer of Medical Ther apeutics Consultants, says by leveraging the expertise of a “think tank”of seasoned drug and device professionals, the new company is uniquely positioned to offer a targeted set of technology and clinical development services to the pharmaceutical and medicaldevice industry. Currently the unit’s consultant team consists of more than 25 highlevel consultants with cumula tive experience gained from years of development management and regulatory oversight at executive levels within the drug, biotech, and device arenas. In addition 15 affiliated “academic consultants” with substantial scientific background supplement its 25 industryexperienced consultants. Also, three ven ture capital firms and two legal firms are joining in the new group’s efforts to improve the quality and scope of services available to earlystage companies. Dr. Doug Cowart, executive director and chief operating officer of Medical Therapeutics Consultants, is leveraging a “think tank” of professionals to position the new company’s services. By tapping into Verispan’s patientcentric database of prescription and medical transactions, ClinVivo can evaluate a wide array of patient scenarios to assess the potential for a new product indication. The decision support tool is designed to help pharmaceutical man ufacturers identify newmarkets for branded products and justify postlaunch drug development. ClinVivo recently was used by a sponsor to investi gate whether its branded hormonereplacement ther apy might have uses beyond its approved indication for controlling hot flashes.Prescribing physicians report ed that the drug seemed to reduce the incidence of fibrocystic breast disease, but the manufacturer could not immediately dedicate funding — nor take the time — to verify that outcome in a clinicaltrial setting. The client used ClinVivo to assess the relative outcomes for patients on the target product versus a comparative drug not only for fibrocystic breast disease,but also for a panel of 11 diagnoses andpro cedures commonly associated with this patient population. In establishing a variety of patient cohorts,ClinVi vo accounted for product dosage strengths, length of therapy, age distributions, and newness to thera py.The costs and time needed to run exploratory tri als in each of these areas for multiple patient popu lations would have been very high. Statistical analysis of ClinVivo data reported that fewer diagnoses of fibrocystic breast disease were made for patients on the client’s HRT product than for those on the competing therapy. The data also indicated that fewer mammograms were per formed on women on the target medication. This finding brings with it tremendous costofcare con siderations that the sponsor can leverage for enhanced product revenues. 66 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 2 PharmaVOICE CLINVIVO identifies new clinical/market opportunities 68 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 2 PharmaVOICE EMEDIA NEW ELECTRONIC AND WEBBASED APPLICATIONS, SITES, AND TECHNOLOGIES MDchoice.com Inc. has unveiled a new marketing platform that allows hospitals, clinics, and physician groups to offer their own private label online healthcare information services. The platform offers health information ranging from uptotheminute health news to a compre hensive encyclopedia and a number of health risk assessment tools that can be customized to the needs of the participating hospital or group. Through marketing messages on the MDchoice Network,hospitals and other healthcare organizations are able to target their services locally and by illness or medical condition, reaching more than 3.5 mil lion healthfocused consumers each month. Patients searching for healthcare information ononeof the compa ny’s Websites are led to the participating hospital’s Website through a variety of tools, including geographically selected links, traditional ban ner advertising, newsletters, and integrated content information. “The link from our national portals to our visitors’ local health providers closes the loop for both our consumer visitors and health care partners,” says Ash Nashed,M.D., founder and CEO of MDchoice. Separately, the company has launched MDchoice Ad Network.The new division offers advertising sales to premiumbranded health Web sites, focusing on building close relationships with advertisers andWebsite publishers,creating custom marketing programs,such as sponsored disease centers that can be published across the entire MDchoice Ad Network. HEALTHINFO LAUNCHES Market Research and CUSTOMER SATISFACTIONTOOL InPulse, an Internet based, market research and customer satisfaction tool has been launched by HealthInfo, a division of HealthInfo Direct LLC. “InPulse is a powerful market research method that has given our clients the answers they need in a timely and convenient manner,” says Matthew Stone, president of Health Info. “ The Internet is no longer the wave of the future. For 93% of physi cians and more than 165 million Americans,the Inter net is the wave of today.” InPulse programs combine elements of direct marketing and elec tronic market research to quickly collect the opinions of customers,employees, physicians,or other healthcare professionals.HealthIn fo clients use InPulse programs for a variety of tactics, suchas to develop brand positioning,to spark creative ideas, and to analyze the opinions and characteristics of a current or target audience,to examine the accep tance of proposed tactics or creative concepts,and to evaluate customer or employee satisfaction. InPulse clients can receive realtime data results daily, tabulated data within one week after closing, and an executive summary two weeks after closing. Quovadx has launched QDXCustomerFocus 4.3, the latest version of its healthcare relationship man agement system. QDX CustomerFocus is a single source enterprise solution directed at managing the health plan’s relationship with its key constituencies: members,providers,and employer groups.QDX Cus tomerFocus documents, and routes to appropriate departments, all types of inquiries, complaints, and business processes, including the highly regulated process of appeals and grievance management, Relationship Management Solution IMPROVES HEALTH PLAN’S INTERACTIONS with Members,Providers,Employers MDchoice HealthConnections CONNECTSPOTENTIAL PATIENTSWITH APPROPRIATE PROVIDERS Ash Nashed, M.D., founder and CEO of MDchoice says patients receive information that is most relevant to them, and healthcare providers are able to reach out to their communities more costeffectively than ever before. CB Technologies Inc. and Complete Software Solutions Inc.have teamedup to provide clients with eLoader,the CSS data loading tool for Oracle Clinical, creating a seamless path to load data collected through CB’s MetaTri al electronic data capture software into Oracle Clinical. This combination of software tools shortens the cycle for data col lection and analysis during clinical trials by reducing the time it takes to transfer and map data into Oracle Clinical, a leading clinicaltrials database. CB’s MetaTrial Hybrid EDC allows for online and offline clinicaltrial data entry at investigator sites.The system functions like a Webbased system, operating online by default.However,the system allows offline data entry in case Internet access is unavailable. A synchroniza tion engine ensures that the data at the local site are synchronized automatically with the central database as soon as an Inter net connection is established. Once data are in the central database, eLoader automatically moves the data into the clinical study structure defined in Oracle Clinical.eLoader reads the MetaTrial data, maps it to the Oracle Clinical study design,and loads the data into the Oracle Clinical database. Addi tionally,eLoader validates the incom ing MetaTrial data against the Oracle Clinical study design and definitions, identifying problems before loading. Once data are in the central database,eLoader moves data into the clinical study structure defined in Oracle Clinical. allowing the plan to easily measure, manage, and improve customer satisfaction, member retention, and customer service representative productivity. Version 4.3 includes enhanced features for improved appeals and grievance processing, improved callcenter reporting, and enhanced CSR performance. “QDX CustomerFocus is a functionalityrich product that meets specific industry needs,” says Lorine Sweeney,president and CEO of Quovadx. Partnership Creates BRIDGE FROMMETATRIAL EDCTOORACLE CLINICAL The Internet is no longer the wave of the future. For 93% of physicians and more than 165 million Americans, the Internet is the wave of today, says Matthew Stone, president of HealthInfo. Matthew Stone
