Can a Patent-Protected Industry Learn to Be Open Online?
This morning, my colleagues and I were discussing the impact of blogs and online communities on the pharma industry. In a short time, much of the working world has gone from picking up a newspaper off their front stoop to pulling up the top-rated news sources online to scanning their favorite blogs and twitter messages. But we were wondering, in a patent-protected industry such as pharma, just how open can individuals be on the World Wide Web?
Certainly, reporters or editors such as myself can unleash their opinions in various media forums. Even officials from regulatory or standard-setting organizations have been known to upload content to web communities such as YouTube. But I’m curious—where do the formulation and validation scientists, the quality control managers, the packaging engineers, and so forth, go when they need advice from peers or when they want to unload some steam and still get a rational, equal-minded response? In many cases, their proprietary responsibilities prevent them from being very open.
Conferences and workshops provide one option to discuss tough issues with others and everyone knows, the pharma industry has more than enough public meetings. Where else would industry find out that so-and-so left company A to go to company B or learn what FDA really meant in its latest guidance? But where does industry turn for those more private questions—the ones they don’t want to ask in public, such as how to correct a computer system that continues to override data migration requests or how many others have emptied all the laboratory trashcans upon hearing that an inspection officer has entered the building?
My point is, blogs—such as the one you’re reading right now—and online communities can offer those opportunities to pharma. I don’t mean to imply that the Internet is the place to anonymously air all your dirty laundry, but it can be a place to connect with like-minded individuals facing the same challenges and questions. What do you think? Leave a comment below and let’s see how your peers respond.
I agree that a blog offers an opportunity to air and share some opinions.
Pharma professionals would probably want to restrict themselves to the larger current problems that industry in general is aware of, and which we can comment upon in a generic fashion, rather than specific in-house issues, even if they are apparently innocuous/ humorous
(parroting your prose: the FDA are here; get rid of those post-it stickers!)
Most people still get at least some of their off-the-cuff advice at the pub/bar/afterworkletdown! Not a few people become world experts after a few drinks!
Pharma is much a small interconnected world so suggest most people do have other people at other companies that can discuss issues with and do not have to do in public. But Yes blogs can be a resource/forum for people who work in Pharma and with a few exceptions out there most do not seem to provide a “comfortable atmosphere” that promotes open exchanges.
I think some worry about Anonymity issues, either from own companies (who may object regardless of avoiding Confidential info) or even FDA finding out their Identifies (because they have a reputation for coming down on critics).
Also there is so much negativism toward Pharma, some justifiable but much that borders on lunacy, that such blogs can turn in flame-fest against Industry. Insiders well recognize the bad things that occur better than anyone but also see the good/potential provided. I get tired of people who obviously don’t have a clue painting the whole of Pharma as Evil using isolated events as rationale.
Finally I suspect most people are just too busy actually working to spend time in blogsphere conversations.