EyeForPharma Conference Recap (Original Posting 10/31/08)

Following Mark Bard on day 1, I had the opportunity to moderate day 2 of the EyeForPharma eCommunications conference in Boston last week. It continues to impress me that even in a down economic climate the eMarketing conferences continue to grow as more and more people are drawn to the lure of interactive marketing. The general tone was also inspiring in that I sensed 2009 would be the year of reaching the physician online. Pharma has underspend other industries for quite some time now, and this is especially true when it comes to reaching physicians. The little that is being spend online tends to focus on the consumer… but I sense that is about to change. The other feeling I had was that although the world may be coming apart at the seams for the financial services, automotive and some other industries, pharmaceutical marketers – while undergoing serious change, including large layoff of oversized sales forces – are still moving forward with business as usual on the e-marketing front. In fact, I’m optimistic that an economic down turn, smaller salesforces, as well as signficant changes to the PhRMA guidelines are all leading up to a much stronger effort towards leveraging online for non-personal promotions to physicians, as well as expanding online efforts to consumers. For an additional recap of the event, see Andy Levitt’s post on PharmExecBlog.