Top 10 pharma efforts in social media

This slide show on Top 10 Pharma Efforts In Social Media has been getting traction on Slideshare.net (2,400 views and 20 people have “favorited” it), so thought I’d share it here as well.

I’ve been doing social media consulting for a company in the health care/pharmaceutical space, and so I’ve been trying to immerse myself more deeply in how social media can be of value — to patients, doctors and companies — in the health care space.

This is now particularly timely, given the Food and Drug Administration’s public hearing on the “Promotion of Food and Drug Administration-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools” on Nov. 12-13. Among the issues to be addressed: adverse event reporting; fulfilling regulations; accountability; posting corrections, links, and opt-in choices. You can vote your conscience at this online survey.

It’s a much-needed clearing of the air, given that regulatory uncertainty has held back the industry from interacting with the public to a considerable degree. Pharma blogger John Mack is helping lead the charge in getting the public to respond to the FDA’s questions regarding its regulation of social media. I’m with those who say, yes, social media does fundamentally change the landscape and require a rethinking of decades-old practices. (I think the FDA should take a page from the FTC in placing emphasis on disclosure of payments coming from the industry.)

I’m sure I’ve overlooked some first-rate social media efforts by pharma out there, but here’s what I come across so far. This 29-page presentation explores some of the best social media efforts and patient community micro-sites by pharmaceutical and health care companies. I’ll bet you haven’t seen all of the social sites built by these companies:

Johnson & Johnson
Glaxo-Smith-Kline
Bayer
Sanofi-Aventis
Novartis
AstraZenecaUS
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Roche
Pfizer
Boehringer Ingelheim

I also give each company a Twitter grade. Head over to the presentation to see the details of their social media efforts.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.