Saundra Hemmings, Project Manager at Oxford PharmaGenesis, reflects on the importance of embracing social media channels to support medical communications activities, and describes how PharmaGenesis uses them.

Recorded 5 April 2017 at a MedComms Networking event in Oxford. Produced by NetworkPharma.tv

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ABSTRACT:

Medcomms agencies are generally good at using hashtags and Twitter, but many have not taken further steps into social media territory, which goes much wider encompassing any website or application that enables users to network online. All such sites and apps are on the rise, including industry-relevant platforms, such as ResearchGate, for researchers, and Sermo, for healthcare professionals.

Social media communications are a completely different ballgame to conventional medcomms activities. Social demographics vary widely across difference platforms, while online activity can be very short-lived: 18 minutes is the reported median lifespan of a tweet! Despite the differences, agencies need to continue to work within the compliance framework of the industry or face sanctions. In 2011, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) ruled a well-known pharma company in breach of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice for promoting a prescription-only medicine to the public, through tweeting about the publication of a study. The ABPI guidance on digital communications was subsequently updated to take account of their ruling. Similarly, in the USA, where direct-to-consumer advertising is acceptable, the Federal Drugs Administration (FDA) ruled against pharma in 2014 for ‘improperly liking’ a status on Facebook they considered to endorse the off-label use of a medicine. Again, the FDA subsequently published draft guidance on social media posting by pharma.

Oxford PharmaGenesis are engaged in several innovative social media initiatives, including online community building for rare disease patient websites, publications planning with online enhancements, landscape analysis, and altmetrics research. The latter played a pivotal role in the communications strategy for the AMWA-EMWA-ISMPP joint position statement on the role of professional medical writers.

Written by Penny Gray, Freelance Medical Writer

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We are building a library of free webcasts, like this one, for the global MedComms Community and others at http://www.networkpharma.tv and we’d welcome your suggestions for new topics and speakers.

Full details of this MedComms Networking event are at http://medcommsnetworking.com/event87.html

Saundra’s presentation (PDF format) is at http://medcommsnetworking.com/presentations/hemmings_050417.pdf

Saundra’s Linkedin page is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/saundra-hemmings/

More about Oxford PharmaGenesis can be found at http://www.pharmagenesis.com

Filming and technical direction by Mario Crispino, Freelance Cameraman & Editor

[For the avoidance of doubt: this video is intended to be freely accessible to all. Please feel free to share and use however you like. Cheers Peter Llewellyn, Director NetworkPharma Ltd and Founder of the MedComms Networking Community activity at http://www.medcommsnetworking.com]