Lilly Works to Heal the Pharma Industry’s Black Eye

Pharma’s reputation needs a boost from the healthcare professional population. At the 2013 EHS Publisher Summit in NYC, Yolanda Johnson-Moton, Director, External Relations of Eli Lilly, shared her company’s thoughts on how to improve industry perceptions and reminded the Summit audience that we all share the same ultimate goal for improved patient care and outcomes.

“It’s important for us to be trusted and valued and looked at as a viable partner in terms of disseminating appropriate information for not only professional use but also for consumer use.”

Lilly is taking a stand to work with healthcare professionals to own up to industry missteps of the past but to also set the record straight for how far we’ve come today. For too long the industry has stood by silently as the media have damaged its reputation. The lack of engagement has created a lopsided agenda in a lot of cases, and patients suffer as a result.

Ms. Johnson-Moton emphasized the need for trusted partnerships between pharma and physicians. Lilly conducted a study to help understand trust and identify what pharma could do to regain it from HCPs. Physicians shared the following key insights. They want info when they want it. They want it to be accurate – the good and the bad; the whole story. And, they want it to be relevant to the patients that they treat.

The essential need for a functional partnership is based on the fact that medical information in this context is far beyond textbook facts. It’s information:

• For consumers/patients: about products, health & wellness, disease state, action steps
• For healthcare providers: about clinical trial results, product data, off-label scientific data, evidence-based data, and disease state
• For caregivers/advocates: about available support tools, health education resources, and adherence encouragement
• About the industry: drug discovery and development processes, partnerships and collaborations, pipeline products, careers in the industry, and professional relations

Without HCP trust of pharma as a provider of these types of information, the path to improved patient outcomes is blocked. Regained trust will not only allow information flow once again, but should also drive the action needed to put information to the best possible practical use.

Check out the other blog posts we shared with insights from our 2013 Publisher Summit. Let us know if you’d like to hear about anything sooner.