Medical Device Marketing

Social Media Working Group for Medical Device Companies

The majority of medical technology marketers navigating the social media waters have been waiting for an update or course of direction from the FDA regarding social media. Since holding a public hearing in 2009 on the “Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools,” the FDA really hadn’t issued any guidance on what medical device companies wanted most—how to respond to adverse-event reporting via the emerging medium of electronic media.

As a healthcare public relations agency, we are constantly speaking with clients about Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and other vehicles to reach key audiences. While some medical device and pharma companies have jumped right in, others are more cautious, wanting to hear from the FDA before making a splash (if you let me continue with my water metaphors!).

In December, 2011, the FDA came out with a Draft Guidance but instead of focusing on adverse-even reporting like people expected, it provided recommendations for responding to unsolicited requests for off-label information related to their products. Check out the full report from the FDA.

This will most likely be a hot topic for discussion at the first meeting of the MassMEDIC working group on social media which is being held on Friday, February  3 (8:00 am) at Schwartz MSL. With participants from Philips, Palomar, Smith & Nephew and Vention Medical and moderated by Schwartz MSL Healthcare Practice Leader Jim Weinrebe, we expect a lively and educational session focused on how marketing, legal, regulatory and HR can work collaboratively. The event is open to all MassMEDIC members. Check back here for insights from the group that will be developing best practices for members.

Posted by Lauren Arnold on January 31, 2012 at 2:47 PM
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Social Media: Should I stay or should I go?

Pharmaceutical companies are starting to reel back on the social media front with Facebook's latest move to make pages more open by enabling comments. Facebook has made consistent strides to become an even more transparent platform, often to the chagrin of the legions of users. So, in some ways, why would they treat pharmaceutical brands any differently?

Is this impacting how pharmaceutical marketers view the value of Facebook? Absolutely. This week, there has been a fair amount of discussion and pre-emptive moves from pharmaceutical giants to remove pages. Once the new Facebook policy goes into effect next week, we will likely see an additional wave of conservatism sweep the pharmaceutical marketing landscape. Surprising? Probably not. However, the universe of social media users is only growing, not shrinking, so it becomes a real challenge to weigh the risk versus reward scenarios.

Our own observations indicate that pharmaceutical marketers have already been leery of entering the unknown foray of especially since there isn't any guidance from FDA on best practices and there isn't any plan to release specific guidance in the near term.

We conducted a survey of medical device social media gurus and marketers, which indicated medical device companies are actively using social media ahead of their pharmaceutical counterparts. There is a clear opportunity and need to share best practices in several areas that could even further accelerate medical device social media engagement.

If you haven't already done so, download our free eBook on social media for healthcare marketers. We offer some practical guidance on how marketers can engage in social media while FDA guidelines lag.

Posted by Risa Goldman Burgess on August 18, 2011 at 3:46 PM
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Tricks of the Social Media Trade for Healthcare Marketers

Working with medical device, medical tech and pharma companies, social media is top of mind.

Healthcare marketers grapple with timing, resources, and understanding the appropriate/effective mix of social media tactics in a communications program. We counsel our clients all the time and field the questions: How much should we/can we engage? What should we post? Are we doing enough? What are your other clients doing? Some are understandably cautious and some are trailblazers.

There are plenty of ways for marketers to engage in social media initiatives today that align with your overall marketing goals. Schwartz Communications runs successful social media campaigns for our healthcare clients with business-impacting results and we'd be happy to help you.

Download our free social media eBook to learn best practices and guidance for social media. It includes the results of a survey we conducted with regional medical device trade association MassMEDIC to learn what healthcare marketers are doing or not doing with social media, as well as suggestions on how to navigate internal regulatory and legal waters. Find out which types of social media tools have been most effective for healthcare organizations and our seven basic tips for social media participation. You'll also get interesting perspective from David Harlow, lawyer and author of HealthBlawg.

 

Do you have questions about your own foray into social media? Do you have a social media policy or need help creating one? Get in touch with us at healthcare@schwartzcomm.com.

Posted by Risa Goldman Burgess on July 26, 2011 at 2:10 PM
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Congrats Medical Device CEOs - You Made It !

At Schwartz, we are particularly proud of our medical device and diagnostic PR practice. In the past 20 years, we have represented some incredibly innovative and life changing brands. From established market leaders to emerging growth companies we view ourselves as passionate ambassadors and advocates for our clients.

So, when MassDevice.com recently published their MassDevice CEO Class of 2011 we were thrilled to see five of our clients were honored as well as many other friends of the Agency.

The online business journal selected 28 of the most innovative CEOs in the medical device/medical technology sector to honor in this first “graduating” class. MassDevice.com boasts that these CEOs represent cutting-edge leadership and innovative thinking and we couldn’t agree more.

The ultimate winners will be announced on July 11 and we are looking forward to the special event taking place around the corner from our Schwartz Waltham office.

Good luck Jeffrey Burbank (NxStage Medical), Kenneth Ferry (iCad), Joanne B. Bauer (Kimberly-Clark Health Care), Daniel Moore (Cyberonics), and Euan Thomson (Accuray). The Schwartz Healthcare PR team will be rooting you on!

Posted by Risa Goldman Burgess on June 23, 2011 at 3:55 PM
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Schwartz Ranks in Top Ten for Independent PR Firms!

Spring has sprung and with it, so has O’Dwyer’s annual ranking of independent public relations firms across the industry. Once again, Schwartz Communications was named among the top 10 independent PR firms out of 152 firms nationwide.  Additionally, Schwartz is ranked sixth among the top firms specializing in technology and healthcare respectively.

Schwartz is proud to be ranked and recognized by O’Dwyer’s Public Relations News, a leading public relations and marketing communications publication. In our 20^th year of business, we continue to be inspired by our innovative clients in a number of markets from clean tech to life sciences, consumer technology, health IT to security. We design and execute traditional media, video, public affairs, social media and blog programs to drive influence and maximize impact.

Check out O’Dwyer’s Public Relations News for the complete list of rankings online. The rankings will also be published in the May print edition of O’Dwyer’s monthly magazine.

Posted by Risa Goldman Burgess on March 16, 2011 at 3:17 PM
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Time Your Medical Device Product Launch to Maximize PR Impact

Schwartz EVP and Healthcare Practice Leader Lloyd Benson takes on the question of how best to time a medical device product launch for greatest public relations impact in a new white paper. We invite you to download "Medical Device Product Launches: Issues & Answers About Timing."

Lloyd's perspective on the question of "when to launch" is informed by Schwartz's work over the years with what we believe to be the PR industry's largest portfolio of medical device clients. A small sampling of our work, which has reached patients, physicians, payors, advocacy groups, hospital management and others, includes introductions of:

- Philips Medical Systems HeartStart home defibrillator
- Cyberonics VNS Therapy for pharmacoresistant epilepsy and VNS Therapy for treatment-resistant depression
- NxStage System One portable home hemodialysis machine
- CYTYC (now Hologic) ThinPrep Pap test
- Hologic Cervista HPV test

He notes that product launches are like "one-pitch softball--you only get the one pitch to swing at. It's not going to happen again in the product's lifetime. So it behooves the healthcare PR pro to closely examine all possible alternatives in terms of timing and effectiveness." Lloyd believes that the received wisdom among many medical device executives causes them to allow that singular PR opportunity to pass them by, effectively turning what could be a chance to reach tens of millions of people into just another press release that crosses the wires unnoticed.

Take a look at the white paper, or drop the Schwartz Healthcare Practice a note if you'd like to talk more about product introductions, seeding the market before regulatory approval, raising awareness of a product already on the market or revitalizing an established brand. We look forward to talking about your company's communications needs.

Posted by Laura Kempke on August 24, 2010 at 2:09 PM
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Schwartz Recognized for Healthcare PR Work On Behalf of Bioness, Leerink Swann

May is treating the Schwartz team well. Last week, the team was recognized with a SABRE Award in "Research for Publicity" for its work in "Research for Publicity" on behalf of Javelin Strategy & Research.

The Schwartz team and Javelin combined professional and social media to promote Javelin's annual identity fraud report, increasing media coverage 126 over previous years, and a whopping 97 percent of all articles emphasizing at least two key messages.

In addition to Javelin, some terrific clients were recognized as finalists: medical device company Bioness, antivirus and desktop security software provider ESET and boutique healthcare investment services provider Leerink Swann. Although they didn't take home trophies, it's the first time Schwartz has emerged with four finalists in the SABRES and the work remains outstanding.

There's a great case study on Schwartz's work with Bioness, including a campaign that delivered $4M in sales leads. Check it out!

Posted by Laura Kempke on May 21, 2010 at 9:41 AM
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Healthcare PR Pros: Follow the FDA on Twitter

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) is now on Twitter.

Posted by Laura Kempke on May 17, 2010 at 12:04 PM
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The Changing Media Landscape: What it Means for Healthcare Companies

When you convene a group of leading healthcare journalists, in front of a room full of healthcare PR professionals, sometimes there's no telling what you might hear. Journalists and PR folk, especially healthcare PR agency specialists, have a bit of a love hate relationship. We both need each other, for different reasons of course, and in light of the different media world we live in today, it's more critical than ever that we best understand how we can help each other. As a PR practitioner, I'm most concerned with finding creative and impactful ways for my medical device, biotech and biopharmaceutical clients to get their message out to their key target audiences. The game has changed and in fact continues to change on what often seems like a minute-to-minute basis. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating but you get the point.

To that end, we prepared a special report with our takeaways from this session, thoughts on how the media environment is altering communications strategies and ideas on how healthcare companies can capture the right mix of influential mindshare. Is it shocking that healthcare journalists are busy (no), have fewer resources (no) and have less time to pursue feature-based stories (no)? How about the fact that several of the reporters we heard from have yet to jump on the social media bandwagon? Probably not shocking, but interesting, yes especially when the media organizations they write for are knee deep in trying to drive eyeballs to their respective Web sites via the multitude of social media tools and channels available. Check out the report and read on to uncover the good, bad and the ugly of what to expect in 2010. Feel free to opine on our blog with your thoughts and observations, we would love to hear from you.

 

Posted by Risa Goldman Burgess on January 26, 2010 at 8:58 AM
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Have a Heart--Congratulations SynCardia Systems on 800th Artificial Heart Implant

Over the weekend, I saw a Tweet (http://tinyurl.com/ljjwla) that the Heart and Diabetes Center NRW in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, performed the 800th implant of the SynCardia CardioWest™ temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH‑t). Congratulations SynCardia! Back in October 2004, in my capacity as PR counsel to Syncardia, I was at the FDA Panel Meeting when it approved SynCardia’s CardioWest temporary Total Artificial Heart as a bridge-to-transplantation in cardiac transplant-eligible candidates at risk of imminent death from non-reversible biventricular failure. What an exciting time for not only the company who spent years and years working on and perfecting the device but also for physicians and patients whose lives were greatly changed—and saved—by this amazing device. I spoke with numerous patients including a cyclist who is an award winning member of the Transplant Olympic teams who had a second chance of life after being implanted with the CardioWest device. I am thrilled that more than 800 patients have since benefited from this device.

While this was the pre-Twitter, Facebook era, SynCardia made headlines news—from cover stories in its local Tucson papers to the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to the Associated Press. This was one of the most exciting, heartwarming (excuse the pun) launches I ever worked on and will stay with me forever.

 

Posted by Lauren Arnold on June 23, 2009 at 12:26 PM
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Politics, Stem Cells and the FDA

One of the more interesting recent medical stories to hit the mainstream media was the news that for the first time, the FDA has cleared the use of embryonic stem cells in human clinical trials. This particular trial will use a stem cell line developed by Geron, Inc. of Menlo Park, CA and will be implanted in people who have suffered acute spinal cord injury. As somebody who has actually seen the Geron-developed video of the stem cell’s affect on paralyzed mice walking and running after having been implanted with the Geron cells, the raw potential of the therapy is breathtaking. Of course, it will take many years of rigorous scientific testing in people to determine both safety and efficacy. This first small 10-patient trial however is an important first step.

 What is curious and thought provoking about this news is its timing. The public debate over embryonic stem cells has been raging for many years now.  Embryonic stem cells, as their name suggests, are derived from embryos. Specifically from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro and then donated for research purposes, with the informed consent of the donors.  The debate became a political ‘hot button’ issue when in 2001, the former Bush administration precluded public funding of additional stem cell research beyond 31 specific stem cell lines—ironically of which the Geron cell line was one. The Geron cell line was developed without public funding using instead the private capital markets. The public funding issue was largely perceived as a political gesture toward conservative supporters of President Bush as well as an extension of former President Bush’s own religious beliefs. To which of course, he is certainly entitled as are we all.

 During the course of applying to the FDA for clearance of this trial, Geron submitted a 21,000 page Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA, believed to be the largest and most thoroughly documented science that the FDA has reviewed in its history.  The company says that the application detailed more than 24 separate animal studies of its product that established both safety and efficacy in animals.  A lot of this scientific data had appeared in peer-reviewed publications over the years of development, including a study published seven years ago that showed efficacy in rats. As the FDA laboriously poured over the data during the years of the Bush Administration’s tenure, more people suffered from acute paralysis and investors bounced Geron’s stock up and down.

 Then on January 21st, only ONE day after the Obama Administration took office, the FDA, suddenly and without warning, announced clearance of the Geron trial. While much of the news reporting on the clearance focused specifically on the scientific importance of the trial, a few intrepid reporters openly speculated that the change in the White House had immediate impact on FDA policy.   This is a topic worthy of discussion. Was the timing simply a coincidence? Or did the Bush administration tacitly impose its own political and/or ethical views on the FDA?  The job of the FDA is difficult. It must ensure that the safety of the public is held paramount and at the same time carefully guide new products and technologies through a process that allows new therapies to get to the marketplace after appropriate review.  To add a layer of “politicization” to this process does not serve the public or the government. The science of medicine is after all transparent to personal belief or religious conviction—and politics.

Posted by Lloyd Benson on February 5, 2009 at 11:57 AM
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