Pharma companies need to open to MEDIA

As pharmacos get globalised and communication gets real-time, there is a need to communicate right information at the earliest and in a manner that would enhance the corporate brand image. But are pharmacos getting more media savvy? Nandini Patwardhan finds out.

Ask any media person about the pharma industry and one can hear monologues on how pharmaceutical companies are not parting with the necessary information. And this is not dependent on the size and type (domestic or MNC, big or small) of the player. Most Indian pharmaceutical companies do not have a well-established department for handling media queries and for them, interaction with the media is largely restricted to publishing annual results, or press releases on M&As, product launches and USFDA approvals. And those, who have well-established departments, are bound by archaic media-interaction policies and time delays.

However as Indian companies are transforming themselves for the global age, they are taking a fresh look at media management to create a sound and formidable corporate image.
"The last few years have seen pharmaceutical players, both Indian and global, to have initiated a process of keeping the channels of communications open with the media and are more open to share information regarding developments and plans," explains Aman Gupta, CEO of the Mumbai-based Imprimis Life PR, a public relations firm having a host of clients in the pharma and healthcare sectors. The same view is corroborated by others from the industry. http://www.imprimispr.com/
"The Indian pharma industry has grown rapidly and is today recognised for its capabilities throughout the world. Considering this fact, most of the pharma companies in India have realised the need to have a dedicated process and policy, relating to media interactions and hence, have constituted exclusive departments that are well equipped to interact with the media," explains Ch. Ram, Head, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations at Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals.

However, there are still certain rules and regulations that govern media interactions of pharma companies, given the very nature of work carried out. With multiple concern areas, like patents, product recalls, trademark infringements and marketing tie-ups, few pharma companies might be open to media and avoid media at some stage, opines NR Munjal, Managing Director of IndSwift laboratories. Additionally, companies shy away from the media due to the fear of being misquoted.
"At times corporate clients may decide not to go ahead with the query or interview because of certain reasons—fear of the journalist misinterpreting, a weak storyline, too soon to share the information, he may not have the information, company policy, regulations or too tight a deadline," explains Gupta.

Role of mass media
In today's day and age, pharma companies cannot simply ignore the importance of interacting with the mass media. With bad publicity coming their way through examples of Vioxx, recalling of various drugs and counterfeiting, it has become essential for pharma majors to create a robust corporate image. And the mass media can assist them in this direction. "Instead of five-six odd media interactions, during publishing of results, if the pharmacos continually interact with all their stakeholders through mass media, it will go a long way in creating a corporate image," explains a top official from a renowned magazine.
Consistent communication with consumers through mass media will not only increase the recall for the corporate brand, but will also help the company ride over any controversies. Media goes a long way in educating the consumers about a particular company and its performance (financial), its products, management team and so on. This helps in building a transparent and a sound corporate image as well as in creating recall in the minds of consumers. Hence it makes sense for any corporate to have a 2-way communication channel with the media. It will be an added bonus, if they make an effort to ensure that the media fully understands the business and its various therapeutic areas of a pharma company. This will help reduce the problems of misrepresentation of information. Such 2-way communication also helps in building a trustworthy image (in minds of the customers) and safeguards against dissemination of wrong information.

By being media savvy, a company stands only to gain. "For starters, a company can benefit through an enhanced corporate image in the minds of doctors and patients, increased confidence in investors and other agencies dealing with the company, availability and retention of skilled and competent manpower and lastly, increased possibility for international tie-ups like in-licensing or out-licensing and a boost to marketing efforts," says Munjal.

IT vs Pharma
Proprietary knowledge and intellectual property is a common feature of the IT industry too. So what makes the IT industry more media responsive than pharma? Experts from the pharma industry defend themselves by saying that the nature of the pharma industry is different from that of the IT industry. "Most service providers in the IT industry employ large number of people and undertake client-contracted work. Therefore, they tend to be more open and visible in terms of operations," asserts Ram. The pharmaceutical industry, on the other hand, is characterised by R&D and manufacturing, which reflects facets of proprietary knowledge that at times set certain limits, when it comes to sharing information. "Not withstanding this, I believe that the Indian Pharma industry has come a long way in terms of communicating its growth strategies and plans with its stakeholders in a transparent manner," he adds.

It is but obvious that companies, irrespective of the industry they are in, share information to the media within the lines of a policy framework adapted by the company. This protocol is drawn on back of the interests of the concerned company and its stakeholders. "There are numerous IT companies who are media shy. Yes, I agree that there are various rules and regulations binding a pharma industry and most importantly it is a research driven sector. Therefore a pharma company cannot openly talk about its various products and its benefits like an IT or an FMCG major," reveals Gupta.

All for a favourable image

A sound corporate image cannot just be created in isolation. It has to be intrinsic to a company's operations. Pharma companies stand to benefit on many grounds by investing in creating an image for the company as a whole. For starters, its products get instant recognition. It helps in generating recall amongst doctors and patients, as well as the general public. "A strong image also delivers many benefits from attracting and retaining human talent, perception of the company's products and services in the mind of the customer and of course also reflects in the capital markets," explains Ram.

While many opine that ensuring corporate governance is the only way of creating sound corporate image in the minds of the shareholder and the consumer, others feel that organising press conferences for announcing results, new product launches and marketing tie-ups at regular intervals, making all useful information available at the company's website and circulating press releases for all the key developments in the company is yet another way of achieving the objective. Whatever tactics a company adopts need to be based on the information needs of all the stakeholders. "The strategies adopted, vis-à-vis each identified strategic stakeholder group will vary, depending on the intensity of the company's standing with each group. However, the overall strategy will have certain common elements on product profile, performance, competencies and corporate responsibility," clarifies Ram. And this is not all. In addition to understanding, a corporate also needs to anticipate the information needs of the different stakeholder groups and deliver it in real-time. One can also look at many other ways, like facility visits, friendly HR initiatives, environment friendly policies and quality initiatives. It is of utmost importance to understand the needs of the various target groups and structure the strategy accordingly.

"A good corporate image is built brick by brick. They are built by policies that are communicated to and accepted by employees, by the quality of customer service and employee behaviour. Reputations are enhanced by how willing and prepared a company is to communicate honestly, sharing good news and bad. Public relations and communications tools can be used effectively to support messages that enhance an organisation's reputation," elucidates Gupta.

A separate department
Companies today, have established corporate communications department or hire services of reputed public relations (PR) firm to help them interact with the media and maintain their image in the minds of the stakeholder. "The corporate communications department does play an important role in complying with the corporate governance requirements, but it has a much more specific role in the overall brand management of the company. Obviously, good governance leads to a good image," opines Ram. "A Corporate Communications department acts as a link between the company and the outside world which includes the media and its investing community," states Munjal. Thus, this department plays a significant role in bringing to the forth, the true image of the company.

Activities of a PR firm, in the pharma context, are not just restricted to distributing press releases. "An agency's role is about reputation and perception management and brand building. It's about creating and implementing public relations programmes that make a meaningful, positive impact on each client's reputation, brand and bottom line," explains Gupta.

However, today, more often than not, both these outfits are criticised for delaying everything and for being inefficient. "That is a wrong perception. PR is definitely not, nor has it been a roadblock. Every process, which is followed, is governed by various protocols and company policy," emphasises Gupta. Usually, when a query comes in, the agency evaluates the query keeping in mind the code of behaviour and the interests of its client. It is forwarded to the concerned spokesperson or corporate communications head of the company. Then, depending on the time, availability and the deadline specified by the journalist, the dialogue is initiated—be it an interview or answers to a query.

Thus, as pharma companies grow bigger and invest crores in corporate branding, the time has come now, to leverage the power of media towards creating a strong corporate image.

http://www.expresspharmaonline.com/20060630/management01.shtml

Health budget up by nearly Rs.4,000 crore

India's health budget has gone up by nearly Rs.4,000 crore to Rs.21,113.33 crore ($4.35 billion) with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday giving special emphasis to the rural healthcare. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) that aims to provide quality healthcare to villagers Monday saw its budget allocation increase by Rs.2,057 crore. Describing the NRHM as an "essential instrument for achieving goal of health for all", Mukherjee in his budget speech proposed "an increase of Rs.2,057 crore over and above Rs.12,070 crore provided in the interim budget" he had presented before the general elections earlier this year. The flagship programme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the NRHM was launched in 2005. The aim was to improve availability and access to quality healthcare for people living in remote areas. The main focus is on 18 states that have weak public health infrastructure - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Hoping to strengthen the tertiary sector, the government is setting up six All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-like institutions in the country and upgrading 13 existing medical colleges. While the upgradation is likely to be completed in the current year, the six institutions are likely to be operationalised by 2010-11, says the plan outlay of the union budget. For this project, Rs.1,447.92 crore has been earmarked. Aimed at correcting the regional imbalance in the availability of affordable and reliable healthcare services, the project envisages setting up AIIMS prototypes in Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). The union budget has also allocated Rs.10 crore for the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD). The pilot phase is being launched in 25 districts in the next two years and aims to prevent avoidable hearing loss and ensure early identification, diagnosis and treatment of ear problems responsible for hearing loss and deafness. The budget also allotted Rs.100 crore for kickstarting medical, non-medical and nursing courses in institutions under the health ministry for accommodating 27 percent reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC). In its bid to develop, promote and make the Indian systems of medicines more scientific, the department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) under the health ministry was allocated Rs.734 crore. The finance minister in his 2009-10 budget also increased by 40 percent the allocation for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the health insurance plan that was launched last year. "More than 46 lakh BPL (below poverty line) families in 18 states and UTs (union territories) have been issued biometric smart cards" for the scheme, the finance minister said in his speech. He said this scheme "empowers poor families by giving them freedom of choice for using healthcare services from an extensive list of hospitals including private hospitals". "Government proposes to bring all BPL families under this scheme. An amount of Rs.350 crore, marking 40 percent increase over the previous allocation, is being provided in 2009-10 budget estimates," Mukherjee added.

http://news.in.msn.com/business/budget2009/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3069084

Campaign World No-Smoking Day

Recently internationally world no-smoking day was celebrated. Smoking as you know leads to lot of lethal diseases the important ones being various types of Cancer's. Also Dr. Anubiram Ramdoss, Union Health minister, India issued the policy of pictorial warnings on cigarette and tobacco packets. The UPA govt. kept its promise made to the NGO and doctors, by issuing pictorial warnings notification for all the manufacturers of tobacco products. Lot of NGOs and hospitals has applauded this move, which will help to curb intake of tobacco related products.

Check-out these links:

· http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health--Science/Health/May-31-World-No-Tobacco-Day/articleshow/4596746.cms

· http://www.zeenews.com/news374447.html


There is enough awareness and publicity on this issue and even a survey can prove this amongst different socio-economical groups. The no-smoking initiative has lot of supporters from big business houses like Ambuja cements, Mahindra's, etc to celebs like Vivek oberoi, etc NGOs like Salaam Bombay Foundation, Heales, Indian Dental Association, etc.

Thinking this campaign from a Public Relations POV tells us how successful it is. The campaign is one of the most successful campaigns, much successful than any Tobacco manufacturing company's cigarette campaign. The campaign was able to lobby at policy makers level to create laws to curb tobacco intake by introducing no-smoking restaurants and no-smoking zones at public places. The campaign also informed all the stakeholders about the ill-effects of tobacco intake with the help of public service films, announcements, TVCs, etc.


· But has this campaign provided solutions for the tobacco addicts?

· If the smokers are doing something wrong, then what is the correct thing?

· How can they quit intake of tobacco?

· Any medicines available?


There are many such questions which the addict is searching for. The surveys often talks that out of every 10 smokers 7 die, 1 cigarette reduces 7 minutes of life, out of every 10 smokers 5 are looking for options to quit but the temptation is enough to push them back to smoking.

Has the campaign able to reduce smokers? The answer is a flat NO.

Except the fact that smokers need to quit and should overcome the temptation. Are their not enough anti-tobacco pills, nicotine gums, etc? The multi-nationals should enter and launch campaigns to promote de-addiction, should launch de-addiction centers for addicts who are looking forward for tobacco free life. Support groups for people looking to quit tobacco should be launched; this would help more people to quit. Just creating awareness and publicity doesn't accomplish anything except PUBLIC RELATIONS for the company or NGO.


To cut the long story short, it is high time just creating awareness, start providing solutions and help to give smokers a SMOKE FREE LIFE..

There are very less NGOs who really work towards helping the smokers to live a smoke free life http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Bangalore/How-to-quit-smoking/articleshow/4601306.cms

Alternative medicine scenario in India

Alternative medicine which comprises the other category of medical therapy or treatment has not yet got its due credits. This sector of medicine is yet to secure place in the minds of patients, the main reason for this is very slow healing process i.e. time consuming and also some are painful therapies. The sector is vast and each has its laws and concepts on healing.

Below is the range of different types of therapies:

Alternative medicines

1. Homeopathy
2. Ayurvedia
3. Unani

Therapy

1. Yoga
2. Acupressure
3. Acupuncture
4. Kerala Ayurveda massage therapy
5. Meditation

The best part of alternative medicine is that it has no side effects and they are natural. This medicinal procedure builds-up body’s immune system, so the body becomes strong enough to protect itself.

The main problem faced by alternative medicine is awareness in general public, except Homeopathy and Yoga of which the general mass are informed to a large extent. This can be seen from the statistics on the Homeopathic industry which reported an increase of 25% in last 5 years; compare to this Allopathy has grown on 2% in this fiscal. So imagine the growth, if these alterative medicines get same awareness as allopathy?

To start the alternative medicine sector should decide on the key messaging part for the general masses. They should hold ground level events to reach the target audience. This sector should also look at taping media to publicize successful cases and start support group, this will help to get across to its patients and solve queries. The strategy should also tap in film placements which influence the mass a lot. Only through awareness and word-of-mouth the alternative medicine market will grow.

Crisis in Healthcare industry

As this sector deals with life - every life saved translates into big publicity and every life lost translates into lot of negative publicity very difficult to erase.

Crisis in this sector is usually classified into the following
1. Death of patient
2. Sexual harassment charges
3. Medicine overdose
4. Duplicate drug

There are many situations where crisis can take place, but above mentioned are few of the important ones.

Incase of any crisis the thumb rule is:
1. It is very important to understand the crisis, talk to all the parties involved.
2. Inform the spokesperson and people affected to maintain a common statement for media. In the meant time setup an enquiry committee.
3. Keep media informed about the latest reports only after approval.
4. Get assistance of legal department/consultants.
5. Understand what media wants and diplomatically solve all the queries.
6. There are many aspects to deal with crisis so it is necessary to hire a communications agency.

Here I will quote a case study to better understand crisis
Molestation charges against male doctor by female patient during checking and no female attendant is nearby. And the doctor is not guilty, but how to prove it?

What, I have highlighted is an extreme crisis situation which can tarnish the image of the doctor as well as of the hospital. Here, it is important to understand the doctors’ side and the patients’ side of the story. Can schedule meeting with a psychiatrist of both the parties, whose reports can help to understand the reasons behind such incidence. The legal dept and the hospitals spokesperson should keep all channels open and interact with the media (the information shared with the media should be approved by the mgt). As far as possible the culprit should not speak to media and have faith in the hospitals management. If the patient is wrong their will be loopholes in her story which can surface during interrogation. It might happen that the patient was sexually starved and was trying to advance towards the doctor and he might have objected resulting in this claim. The other possibility can be that doctor was checking her heart beats and by mistake touched her breast. Only after discussions this type of case can be solved.

Once the case is solved both the parties (doctor & patient) should speak to media and convey the right message. Keeping media informed helps to gain positive respect from media which helps in the long run.

The rise of Homeopathy

Homeopathy medicine which can be referred as the third front in medicine after Allopathy and Ayurvedia is regaining its credibility in the recent times. The patients themselves have turned towards homeopathy after using allopathy and ayurvedia over the years.

Homeopathy was discovered just over two centuries back by Dr. Samuel Hahnemman, a German. But somehow the way this particular medicine follows was very time consuming and this became the main reason for drift in patients towards other type of medicine. Also, the media hardly recognized homeopathy and that it can cure patients of diseases. Homeopathy was also not able to prove itself with enough studies to ICMR or FDA, which hampered its further credibility. In medicine credibility is the most important feature and media helps to a large extent to establish it in the minds of consumers/ patients/ caregivers. Since allopathy was able to cure faster, the results were faster to experience, this form emphasized allopathy as a credible form of medicine.

But now the patients are more aware and they understand homeopathy as natural form of medicine i.e. it helps your body to fight the disease by using the same symptoms which was the reason behind disease. Homeopathy uses the law of similar for treatment. Small doses of the disease causing bacteria are given to the patient so the patient creates immune system for that particular disease and fights against to cure the patient. The same treatment style is used when treating any patient on bite by a poisonous snake, the medicines used to treat venom are manufactured using venom.

So homeopathy hardly harms our body or has any side effects, since the medicine is manufactured using the same symptoms which is causing the trouble..

Recently couple of doctors has taken initiative to promote Homeopathy form of treatment, and their efforts have seen the light of the day. Now the number of homeopathy clinics has increased to cater the new informed patients. These patients are opting for Homeopathy, post their experience of allopathy medicines which cause side-effects. Whenever we think about Homeopathy the first name which comes to our mind is Dr. Mukesh Bhatra, he is on the fore-front of the brigade to inform patients about homeopathy through his extensive columns in various media channels. There are other doctors like Dr. Rajesh Shah who reached out internationally through web to create awareness about this form of medicine.

Some reference websites

http://www.classicalhomoeopathy.com/
http://i-heal.blogspot.com/

Why doctors should opt for vernacular media?

Well, everybody knows that we require treatment from doctors as we grow older. It is also known fact that most old/aged people prefer vernacular media or newspapers, rather than any other media. Even the people late in 40s prefer vernacular media to keep themselves updated happenings. This can also be found from a small survey done at the doctors own clinic, where the doctor’s receptionist can ask the patients about which types of newspapers they read.

Vernacular media/publications are more reader oriented and they have more editorial content than their English counter-part. The vernacular publications provide the readers a taste of their own and culture. They give have special sections for readers on culture and old age medicines/therapies.

The vernacular media has lots of space for health news. As a matter of fact the vernacular media content is more for the reader to use, so they have a dedicated section for health and wellbeing related news.
It is quite easy for doctors to get featured in vernacular media as they have very limited amount of news to feature. They are most happy when any doctor promises them to provide a series of articles. A series of articles in vernacular publication better than on of small quote in mainline English media.
A doctor can easily establish a good rappo with editor or the chief of bureau of the particular vernacular publication. With this the doctors can pitch him to come on the advisory board for health news for the publication; this will help to get featured in the health pages. The publication benefits from having a doctor journalist on board and the doctor benefits news coverage.