At the recent ePharma Summit in NYC, Charlotte McKines, Global Vice President, Marketing Communications and Channel Strategies, Merck & Co, spoke on “How Digital is Transforming the Pharmaceutical Marketing Model.” She noted, “Customers are increasingly looking for information using digital to get information so you see… most of our customers, physicians, use the web to gather information, but more importantly they use the non-pharmaceutical sites to get information about our products. They really don’t have a lot of trust and value right now in pharmaceutical sites. So we really struggle… to really become a primary trusted source. We have got to get there because finding the right place and being in the right destination for our customers really does give us the competitive advantage.”
Regulation Works
A Research Letter in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association reported that blood levels of trans fatty acids, a substance with known adverse metabolic effects, fell 56 percent between 2000 and 2009. The study compared trans fat levels in adult white men in samples from the NHANES studies, a periodic assessment of the heath and well-being of a representative sample of the US population. In 2003, the US Food and Drug Administration required that food companies declare the trans fatty acid content on the nutrition label of foods and dietary supplements. In addition, some community and state health departments have required restaurants to limit TFAs and reductions have been shown in supermarket and restaurant products.
Glock: The Book
A recent review of the book “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” by Paul Barrett in the Washington Post described the book as “a story of innovation, manufacturing, marketing, money, lawsuits, power, influence, politics and a little sex.” Barrett “explains how the company was able to remain profitable despite allegations of corruption, tax avoidance and malfeasance. A seasoned reporter and now assistant managing editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, Barrett originally covered the more disturbing allegations of Glock’s financial and managerial irregularities in a series of articles for the magazine.
Should Sugar be Regulated like Alcohol?
In a commentary in Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis make the case that excessive consumption of sugar causes many of the same health problems as alcohol, suggesting that regulation should seek to put similar limits on sugar’s toxic consequences. Charles Baker, the chief scientific officer for the Sugar Association disagrees. “When the full body of science is evaluated during a major review, experts continue to conclude that sugar intake is not a causative factor in any disease, including obesity,” he writes.
Can California Change US Cars Forever? New Zero-Emissions Rules Take Aim
Last month, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed stringent new standards intended to boost the production and sale of electric and hybrid vehicles here and nationwide, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The new rules mandate that 15 percent of new cars sold in the state by 2025 run with zero or near-zero emissions. The result would be some 1.4 million electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen cars on California roads within 13 years. Today, there are 10,000 such vehicles in the state. Perhaps surprisingly, automakers appear to be on board.
World Economic Forum Report Calls for “More with Less” by Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency
A report released at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, highlights “the leading role the private sector can play in scaling sustainable consumption. Business can catalyse scale through transforming interactions with citizens; rethinking business models, value chains and operations; and playing an active role in shaping the policies and investments that define the rules of the game. However, this transformation will not be achieved by the usual group of leading companies or countries: delivery of more resource-efficient growth needs to happen in every business and every country through the aggregation of impacts and a commitment to action.”
GM Looks to Recharge Chevy Volt’s Image With New Campaign
AdAge reports that General Motors has launched a newspaper and TV marketing campaign to reinforce the Volt’s image as a safe, innovative car. In November, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began an investigation after two incidents in which the Volt’s battery pack either caught fire or emitted sparks following intense crash testing. The NHTSA closed the investigation last week. Congressional Republicans criticized the government’s response, accusing NHTSA of a conflict of interest because the government still owns 26.5 percent of the company’s shares. The GOP released its report at a hearing titled: “Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know and When Did They Know It?”
Johnson & Johnson to Pay $158 Million to Settle Lawsuit on Improper Marketing
The drug company Johnson and Johnson, according to the New York Times, last week said that it would pay $158 million to settle a 2004 Texas lawsuit that accused the company of improperly marketing Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug, to state residents on the Medicaid health program for the poor, including children. The lawsuit accuses the company of pushing Risperdal as “appropriate and safe to treat a broad range of symptoms in populations and disease states for which it had no F.D.A.-approved indication, including in the child and adolescent population.”
Lobbying in Action: PepsiCo Fights Guidelines for Marketing to Kids
In a posting on theatlantic.com, Marion Nestle reports that Pepsi spent millions this year to fight a set of proposed standards that would regulate how products are presented to kids. Lobbyists are supposed to report what they do and how much money they spend doing it, but this information is not easily available to the public. CBS News reports that PepsiCo spent $750,000 to lobby the government last quarter. This comes to roughly $3 million annually, a drop in PepsiCo’s annual $30.6 billion sales in the U.S. – $57.8 billion worldwide.
Montana High Court Upholds Ban on Election Spending by Corporations
The Montana Supreme Court, reports the Great Falls Tribune in Great Falls, Montana, restored the state’s century-old ban on direct spending by corporations on political candidates or committees in a ruling Friday that interest groups say bucks a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court decision granting political speech rights to corporations. The decision grants a big win to Attorney General Steve Bullock, who personally represented the state in defending its ban that came under fire after the “Citizens United” decision last year from the U.S. Supreme court.
Corporations and Health Watch 