WHAT’S NEW NEW HEALTHCARERELATED PRODUCTS, SERVICES, AND COMPANIES
Pharmaceutical companies wanting to gain an edge in managedcare markets can turn to PharmaStrat Inc. for comprehensive market research services.The recently launched company was founded by Philip J. Patrick, a pharmaceutical executive with expertise in managedcare market dynamics,who is president. “Pharmaceutical marketing executives make sig nificant investments in physician and consumer market research, yet often overlook the importance of learning what drives the decisionmaking process in their national accounts,” Mr. Patrick says. “Pharma Strat works with market researchers and brand man agers to design indepth research tools that help identify opportunities in managed markets — and how to maximize those opportunities with integrat ed and actionable tactics designed to gain favorable formulary position and pullthrough.” M a n a g e d m a r k e t s researched by PharmaStrat include health plans, pharma cy benefit managers, Depart ment of Defense accounts, pharmacy directors, medical directors, and other accounts at the local, regional, and national levels. Before founding Pharma Strat,Mr.Patrick served as VP of sales, North America, for Mor pace Pharma Group,a Boston based marketing consulting firm, and as VP of client ser vices for The Zitter Group. He holds a MBA in marketing from Columbia University and a B.A. in economics from Rutgers University. PHARMASTRATLaunchesManaged Markets Research Services Division Newunit works with market researchers and brandmanagers to maximize opportunities with integrated andactionable tactics togain formulary position “PharmaStrat Inc. works with market researchers and brand managers to design indepth research tools that help identify opportunities in managed markets — and how to maximize those opportunities with integrated and actionable tactics designed to gain favorable formulary position and pullthrough,” says Philip J. Patrick. Formedic’s Patient Record Forms for ECZEMADIAGNOSIS Formedic Patient Record Forms has launched the Atopic Dermatitis Progress Report. Developed with the assistance of Ronald Vender, M.D., a dermatologist at McMaster University, the form leads physicians through the entire patient visit — from history to physical to treatment. Atopic dermatitis is the clinical name for eczema, a common disease that primarily affects children. A new class of drugs, immunodilators, has recently been approved to treat this condition, and interest in this area is expected to increase. Blue Spoon Consulting Group LLC has been launched with the goal to help pharmaceutical clients create an integrated marketing enterprise. The Blue Spoon mission is to improve the productivity of brand strategy, organizational structure, or a tac tical mix.Fusing the fields of system dynamics and information management with brand communications, the company has created a new category of services:systems integration for marketing. This new concept brings together agencies (or their programs),functional groups, vendors, information technology services, and market knowledge around a customer.Blue Spoon Consulting combines these com ponents,enabling better productivity from brand strategy, organizational structure, or a tactical mix. Blue Spoon’s management comes from Interpublic Group and Omnicom pharmaceutical advertising and publicrelations agencies.The company brings an insider’s perspective to implementing its thinking. “`Systems integration for marketing’moves drug companies away from an advertisingbased perspective of branding,”says John Singer,principal of Blue Spoon Consulting.“Concentrating instead on `systems solutions’to connect marketing components,it’s an original framework to overcome marketing and media fragmentation.” Blue Spoon offers two services.The first is Campaign Management to integrate advertising, public relations, and medical education channels around prescriber profiling and salesforce automation.The second is Market ing Process Improvements to help clients design more efficient marketing systems. BLUE SPOONCONSULTING Fuses Marketing, Information Management, and Brand Communications AchieveGlobal’s Training Program Addresses CHALLENGES FACING SALES PROFESSIONALS AchieveGlobal has launched Selling Against the Competition, a training program to help sales pro fessionals achieve greater success. “The only way to outsell the competition is to outthink them,”says Seleste Lunsford,sales portfolio market director for AchieveGlobal.“Today’s sales pro fessionals are expected to be as familiar with their customers and competition as they are with their own products and services. Even more to the point, they need to know how their offerings meet cus tomer needs more effectively than those of their competitors — and then communicate that differ entiation to customers.” Designed for the experienced sales staff, the pro gram was tested with a variety of sales representa tives, some of whom had more than 30 years of experience in their industries. The training program provides a roadmap for competitive selling success by addressing four key components: understanding your customer’s situa tion, understanding your competitive position, com municating your competitive advantage, and man aging competitive challenges. The oneday program is designed for groupsof 6 to 12 people, and allows participants to evaluate competitors and develop strategies to outsell them. The program can be delivered by an Achieve Global training performance consultant or an AchieveGlobalcertified facilitator. 83 PharmaVOICE F e b ru a r y 2 00 3 WHAT’S new ClinicalTrial Planning Accelerated with FASTTRACKTOOLS Two new software packagesprovide tools for better management of clinical trials. The recently launched TrialSpace Resource and Cost Esti mator enables datadriven planning of clinicaltrial resources and costs. FastTrack Systems Inc.’s datadriven enterprise application improves clin icaltrial planning by quickly and accurately estimating trial resources and costs at the project, program,and portfolio levels. Complementing the Resource and Cost Estimator is Fast Track ‘s TrialSpace Grants Manager. The benchmarking and budgeting appli cation allows contract professionals to predict and manage investiga tor costs and budgets for clinical trials. Grants Manager draws on the world’s largest library of pharmaceutical industry clinicaltrials contract data,offering accurate investigator cost estimates. Many companies store trial resource and cost information in incom patible formats across multiple departments, diverse therapeutic areas, and geographic locations, making it difficult to access and use. With Resource and Cost Estimator, companies can quickly apply individual resource and cost data in combination with Fast Track’s industry bench mark data to create precise estimates in real time, providing managers with a dynamic approach to planning and resource allocation. Grants Manager provides data on protocol pricing, investigator fees, and central laboratory costs. The product enables professionals to progress quickly from the protocol synopsis or final protocol to final, negotiated fees, reducing the time and costs associated with negotiating investigator and central labora tory fees. Through integration within Fast Track’s TrialSpace platform,Resource and Cost Estimator and Grant Man ager provide any time, any place access, facilitating online collaboration among authorized users within a company in a highly secure, Webbased environment. Estimates can be created, distributed for review, and finalized within a single application, and can be updated immediately as dictated by internal and external situations. “Rapid advances in science and technology are helping biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to produce a large number of drug candidates for clinical trials,” says Jim McCord, CEO of Fast Track. “ We understand the industry ‘s need to focus on enabling technologies and data that, ultimately, help bring more new and better drugs to market faster at lower cost.” ACHIEVEGLOBAL,Tampa,Fla.,helps organizations achieve business results through a strategic approach to the direction and development of competent individuals;services focus on skills training and consulting services in customer service, sales performance,and leadership.For more information,visit achieveglobal.com. BIOTECHNOLOGYBUSINESS CONSULTANTS SERVICES,Ann Arbor, Mich., is one of the nation’s leading consultancies.For more information,visit bioconsultants.com. BLUE SPOON CONSULTING GROUP LLC, New York,provides integrated marketing design, testing,and product deployment solutions for the pharmaceutical Follow up Pittsburgh Program Encourages SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (PLSG), a partnership to put the region’s lifesciences industry on a fast track for growth, has launched its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Advance program with its selection of Biotechnology Business Consul tants LLC to provide technical con sulting expertise. The program is designed to provide qualified life sciences entrepreneurs and com panies with scientific and editorial review of federal grant applications and oneonone grant strategy consultation. The SBIR program, founded 20 years ago and coordinated by the U.S. Small Business Administra tion, funds the research and development efforts of small businesses whose work shows commercial potential. SBIR grants a total of more than $1 billion each year nationwide. “Biotechnology Business Consultants’ knowl edge of how the SBIR decisionmaking process works and its track record of helping companies secure SBIR grants made the firm the partner of choice for PLSG,” says Dennis Yablonsky, Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse CEO.“SBIR grants are a crit ical source of funding to the lifesciences industry and for helping companies bring new concepts to market.” “Rapid advances in science and technology are helping biotech and pharmaceutical companies to produce a large number of drug candidates for clinical trials,” says Jim McCord, CEO of Fast Track. “This crowded inventory of promising compounds, combined with the added cost and revenue pressures of blockbuster drugs coming off patent and thinner margins, makes wellplanned, efficient, and successful clinical trials more critical than ever.” in the design, implementation,and analysis of qualitative and quantitative research in managedcare markets. The company serves major pharmaceutical manufacturers nationwide. For more information,visit pharmastrat.com. PITTSBURGH LIFE SCIENCES GREENHOUSE,Pittsburgh, is a partnership of the University of Pittsburgh,Carnegie Mellon University, the region’s lifesciences industry, economic development organizations, and the Commonwealthof Pennsylvania, formed to expand and grow Pittsburgh’s lifesciences community. For more information, visit pittsburghlifesciences.com. industry. For more information, visit bluespoonconsulting.com. FASTTRACK SYSTEMS INC., San Mateo, Calif., provides technology and information systems for expediting clinicaltrial design,setup,and execution. For more information, contact fasttrack.com. FORMEDIC,Somerset,N.J., is a supplier of patient record forms, providing more than 153,000 physicians with practice management tools.Formedic’s programs are designed to streamline practice management, increase efficiency,and decrease office overhead. For more information,visit formedic.com. PHARMASTRAT INC., Flemington,N.J., is an independent market research firm specializing Dennis Yablonsky