Fierce
Pharma Marketing | Beth Snyder Bulik
 |
| Ryan Olohan |
At a recent Ogilvy CommonHealth marketing summit, Google's national
industry director of healthcare, Ryan Olohan, compared the digital disruption
in the pharma industry to a large, slow-moving train. He pointed to other
industries where brands like Kodak, Blockbuster and Blackberry either stood by
watching or moved too late and were, in essence, run over by the digital
locomotive that plowed through their sectors. Will the same thing happen in
pharma?
Ritesh Patel, executive vice president and chief digital officer at Ogilvy
CommonHealth and the conference organizer, said that depends on the company.
Progressive pharma thinkers have begun to embrace the digital challenge and
are not only thinking about what they need to do to change, but also piloting
programs to get there, he said. Others who give into fear and uncertainty and
"stick their heads in the sand" will not fare as well.
Novartis, Johnson & Johnson's Janssen, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi and Boehringer
Ingelheim are among those working to build digital strengths, Patel said, in
particular by building communities. Engaging and creating patient communities is an effective way for pharma to
approach digital, he said.