Pharma will not embrace open source anytime soon

Open-source is a form of knowledge networking. The blog post below (WSJ Health Blog) tries to justify why pharma is afraid to go the way most industries went some time ago. Interestingly, one day you hear the excuse for pharma decline is "too much regulation", another is "lack of regulations", as argued below. I suspect the real problems are elsewhere...what is your take ?

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/12/13/report-life-science-companies-not-rushing-to-social-networking/

Report: Life Science Companies Not Rushing to Social Networking

By Katherine Hobson

The FDA hasn’t yet weighed in on how pharma should be using social media without running afoul of the agency’s rules on drug marketing.

And that, says a report from Deloitte, is one of the chief reasons more life sciences companies haven’t embraced social networking more aggressively.

The report — based on interviews with life sciences company executives and an online survey of 208 life sciences marketing and risk management professionals — finds that while 41% of respondents say their company currently uses online social networks to seek or disseminate information, and 21% say it plans to, 38% say it has no plans to do so.

Even after the FDA issues guidance, 53% of respondents expect there to be confusion about how life sciences companies can use things like Facebook and Twitter.  Some 28% say their companies are waiting to see from others’ experiences what the return on investment in social media efforts will be.

Of those respondents who are already engaged in social media, more than half say they’re using them to disseminate information, 42% to proactively seek information and 23% to react or respond to information posted on an online social network.

There are “significant” risks for companies to using social media. Deloitte says data collection is least risky since most social network users have already agreed to swap personal data for the free use of the network. It’s the information dissemination that has the big risks, because of the FDA’s marketing rules. The agency “worries that conversation could result in off-label promotion, unfair or unbalanced portrayals of therapy risks and benefits and failure to report adverse events,” the report says.

Novartis, for example, was chided by the FDA this summer for information generated by the “Facebook Share” widget on the drug maker’s website for a cancer drug.

Image: iStockphoto