After we complained about the lack of innovation by retail pharmacies, it’s good to hear that at least one major chain is rising to the challenge.

News comes via, PSFK that Walgreens has created a new online tool to help customers find pharmacists that best suit their needs:

“Pharmacy Creates A Searchable Database Of Employee Expertise

Drug retail chain Walgreens has launched an searchable database online that connects customers with pharmacists who are best suited to meet their specific needs. The ‘Find Your Pharmacist’ tool allows customers to select a pharmacist by matching their healthcare needs with the areas of expertise, specialties, languages and clinical backgrounds of Walgreens pharmacists. Also available as a mobile app, the service is a result of a Pew Internet survey that suggested that nearly one-third of pharmacy customers would like the ability to search for a pharmacist based on their knowledge of specific drugs and/or conditions.”

We see a lot of potential for this type of application as patients and consumers continue to look to make their healthcare experience more personal. Kudos to Walgreens for leading the pack on this one!

Tal Golesworthy did.

In this inspiring TED talk , Golesworthy explains how he used his expertise as a process engineer to help design a new treatment for his damage aorta. One of the ongoing themes of Pixels and Pills is breaking out of our silos to foster innovation. Golesworthy’s story is a perfect example of how that can be done. It’s also a cautionary tale of how ego and stubborn adhesion to common practice could have defeated a simple but revolutionary new process that will improve quality of life for countless people. As Golesworthy says, the rewards can be “stonkingly huge”.

How do you get your organization to break it’s routine to find new solutions to innovation challenges?

By Jason Brandt

Do you recognize the packaging in the photo above? it’s the signature product design of Help Remedies, a four year old company that’s been shaking up the sleepy world of Pharma product design. Not only are their products simple (they only use one ingredient per product), their messaging is clear and concise (”What product do I take for a headache. Oh, I guess HELP I HAVE A HEADACHE”) and their packaging is even eco-friendly.  They almost take an “organic” approach to Pharma production and marketing, simplifying and stripping away unnecessary ingredients whether it be in the products, the packaging or their marketing communication. This remarkable methodology has led to tons of media coverafge and invites to prestigious conferences like TED.

So it should come as no surprise that their website is equally innovative. HelpIneedhelp.com is not only one of the best designed Pharma sites out there, it’s also the most fun. A user may go on the site with a question about a product or the company but the appealing navigation and compelling content will keep them engaged for a significant period of time.

The lean design leads to a great user experience that easily communicates important information, while also conveying the spirit of fun and “think different” that characterizes the brand. Humor on a Pharma site? Yes, it is possible and Help Remedies uses it to maximum effect with fun, multimedia solutions to problems like “Help, I’m in a rut” (which generates a new identity for you) and “Help, I have ghosts.” which encourages you to have an online, real time chat with your ghosts. From a technical standpoint, it’s an incredibly well executed mix of digital assets that promotes repeat visits and minimal bounce rates.

Our favorite? The “Help, I have too much money” button which takes you to a donation page for Help Remedies!

Yes, many of Help’s products are not the type of complex treatments that require significant fair balance information or usage explanations. But by thinking outside the box, the company provides a terrific blueprint to a smarter, more intuitive approach to communicating with the Pharma consumer.

Bravo, Help Remedies, bravo!

So … did it work?

We here at Pixels & Pills were tremendously excited by last week’s announcement that Facebook was making a major push to help the cause of organ donation in the US and the UK. It’s the kind of thing that social networks can do incredibly well and it can have a major impact on the causes they choose to support. And FB backed up the new initiative with a major media push. So what’s the impact one week later?

THE POSITIVE: Over 6000 people registered through Facebook and donations in California (Facebook’s home state) increased by over 5000%.

THE NEGATIVE: With over 526 million users worldwide, those 6000 people represent a drop in the bucket. Granted the initiative is only taking place in the US and the UK. But if we conservatively estimate that those two countries represent 100 mm of Facebook’s registered users, you still get a response rate of less than .01%.

While it’s still too early to tell what the long term impact of the program will be we have to confess to disappointment at those numbers. We’re sure DONATE LIFE (Facebook’s partner in the initiative) is more than happy to see this spike in their traffic. But given the huge push that Facebook put behind this announcement (a full court media press by it’s two most prominent representatives) and the valuable screen real estate that it devoted to the issue, we’re really surprised that the figures aren’t higher.

What’s holding people back from participating? We think this is one of those cases where Facebook needs to learn from some of it’s online competitors. Because the Facebook platform is a closed environment, FB developers are used to doing things their way. And their way can be extremely complicated (as anyone who has tried to post to Facebook from another site or get a business validated on Facebook Places can tell you). The current organ donor signup process takes you out of the Facebook platform and on to individual state organ donor registries where users need to fill out a fairly lengthy form. Definitely not as easy as ticking the box on your driver’s licence application. Sites like Zappos and Amazon understand that this kind of friction can easily lead to abandonment. And while organ donation is not a purchase decision much of the same type of thinking goes in to the process.

We believe that Facebook needs to take more of a “guided sale” approach to the process, helping people understand how to quickly and easily fill out th necessary information and also addressing the numerous privacy concerns that have been raised by critics of the program. With an enhanced user experience, the program could become more popular and really expand on the good work they’ve started.

We would love to see this kind of behavior become a part of people’s everyday actions online. Want to sign up for a Facebook account? Why not include the organ donation option as part of the registration process? Similarly, we think it would be great if this was also expanded to other worthy causes like the bone marrow registry.

Facebook, Google and their digital colleagues wield enormously powerful tools for social change. We’re excited to see at least one company using those tools in a positive manner. And as a community, we believe Pharma should support these types of initiatives and help companies find a way to make them more successful. Let’s reach out to the major social media players and show them how we can all work together to improve quality of life for our users.

What would you do to help Facebook make this program work better?

We’ve often used our digital bully pulpit to chastise Pharma companies both big & small for their tardiness in adopting the latest digital tools and technologies. We’ve sounded the alarm more than once about how Pharma is falling behind other industries in terms of digital communication and consumer expectations. And we’ve been as encouraged as any by the slow but steady advances that have been made in the industry over the last few years.

But what about the other end of the purchase funnel. How are pharmacies & drug stores utilizing the latest technology to educate consumers, provide value and improve patient quality of life? The answer is surprising. A quick survey of sites for the major pharmaceutical retailers in the US reveals that they are as slow or slower to adopt new technologies than their manufacturing partners. And that’s even more surprising when one considers that retail has been a major driving factor in technology innovation.

Take for example, the screenshot at the top of this article. That’s a shot of New York based Duane Reade’s mobile site seen in a Chrome browser. Forget responsive design. Duane Reade went to the trouble of building a dedicated m site (i.e. a site optimized for mobile use). So why bother to have it display in a desktop based browser. Is the company simply adding a link to show off the fact that it has a mobile (largely text based) site?  There also doesn’t seem to be any way to purchase anything from the mobile app (we tried to use the prescription service but got a “system unavailable” message). Definitely not a mobile optimized experience.

At least Duane Reade (and it’s new parent company Walgreen’s) have mobile apps. CVS, another leading drugstore chain doesn’t seem to have bothered with that.

They do have a significant Facebook presence with almost 1,000,000 fans:

But you would never know that (or anything about their other social media platforms) by looking at their website:

To be fair, even online veteran drugstore.com buries their social media links below the fold (and has no noticeable mobile presence):

But the bigger issue than these very basic UX design issues is the lack of focus on the end user. Where is the information that can improve health, compliance or patient quality of life? Pharmacies and drugstores have a real opportunity to support Pharma companies efforts in this area (especially with the relatively low costs associated with digital offerings). But for now, their offerings consist of very basic e-commerce sites that look like their stakeholders have never been exposed to Gilt, Zappos or even Amazon.

We admit we’re in uncharted waters here. Pixels and Pills doesn’t cover the Pharma retial space and none of our contributors have worked with a pharma retailer on a digital offering. But it seems like there are very basic service offerings and consumer communications tools that are jus not being offered by drugstores online.

Why not? What’s holding them back?

We’re still gauging reaction to the recent Facebook Announcement about their organ donor initiative. But in the meantime, Manhattan Research has released some pretty interesting figures about mobile health consumption. Check out the graphic below to view some of their insights.

(thanks to Tom Hanley at EyeForPharma for pointing this one out to us)

Huge announcement from Facebook today. Watch the video below and look for Pixels & Pills reaction in tomorrow’s post.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg sat down with “ABC World News” anchor Diane Sawyer

Today’s guest post comes from Theo Fellgett, VP – eyeforpharma. Remember P & P readers can get $300 off registration for SFE & Commercial Excellence USA 2012. Just mention the discount code “P&P” when you sign up to attend.

Customer Evolution requires Pharm Revolution

The good old days are over! Once, profits were skyrocketing, Market Access was more straightforward and prices could almost be set at will. Today, in order to drive profits in this ‘new era’ a different approach is required – pharma revolution!

Where we were

Our commercial approach used to be simple, it was call-centered and transactional, it relied on frequent, often repetitive interactions between reps and prescribing physicians.

Reps would flood as many prescribers as possible, with as many product offerings as possible in short visits of about 10 minutes.

Where are we now

Growth projections for the one-time booming mega-markets of the US, EU 5 and Japan are in the one digit-zone. Market Access is becoming increasingly testing.

Macro-economic factors such as lower GDPs and falling tax revenues, explains Tyrone Edwards at SFE USA 2011 “are impacting healthcare budgets” and “promote more aggressive cost containment” – leading to ‘increased pricing and reimbursement measures’ as well as a favoring of generics. You can view a selection of past event presentations for free here http://www.eyeforpharma.com/sfeusa/content.php

Inflection point

Hugh Tippett, Head of Global Sales at Novartis, argues that the industry has reached “infection point”. He claimed that the industry had hit “a junction at which the organizations that belong to it need to shift from the current way of doing business to a new model, since the old approach begins to offer diminishing returns”.

Although this is a challenge; it also “provides a company’s executive team with an opportunity to set a trajectory that propels it into an industry leadership position” continued Hugh.

New model

The selling model pharma firms need to adopt if they want to not only survive but prosper in the present – and future – economic environment should be an “integrated one that is centered on value creation”, continued Hugh.

Cubist is a company that have successfully achieved this. They have managed to move from single to double digit growth in mature markets. Eric Kimble VP Sales & Marketing, Cubist has presented a detailed case study at SFE US on this journey, with insights on which strategy won through and some examples of key change drivers. Eric emphasizes the importance of good management to succeed when implementing a new strategy.

Share-of-value and KAM

With a long-term KAM perspective in mind, the field force should no longer simply carpet-bomb prescribers with indiscriminate sales details during brief rep visits. Instead, their messages need to be tailored to different requirements of the customers. This is the future and the ‘Super-Rep’. Eric gave a great presentation in 2011 – you can view it here http://www.eyeforpharma.com/sfeusa/content.php

In carefully prepared, multiple meetings with a well-targeted and segmented selection of customers, they should, moreover, aim to understand the existing “goals, needs and priorities” of patients, and provide help beyond the scope of product selling and “short-term gain” argues Tyrone Edwards.

By using that knowledge as a basis for the development and implementation of new product solutions or improvements, he says “a tangible win-win situation” that is profitable for both companies and customers can be created.

This remains a key theme throughout the SFE & Commercial Excellence USA agenda, with new dedicated tracks on ‘Align your multi-channel messages around value’ and ‘to KAM or not to KAM’. More information on the event agenda is available at http://www.eyeforpharma.com/sfeusa/conference-event-brochure.php

How can you achieve the change required?

Long-term relationships rather than short-term ones is the key. “Objectives such as increased brand awareness, satisfaction, and identification as well as compliance support, lead to better customer retention. Cooperation with Patient Association groups and local opinion leaders, too” says Tyrone, can be useful in this “new era”.

Flexible pricing models such as risk-sharing agreements could also become an option for sales managers. With such a contract, a pharma companies can try to secure or improve market share by providing a money-back guarantee on the effectiveness of a drug.

How long will it take?

Companies won’t be able to make the changes to their organizational structure and culture that are necessary to enable a value-based KAM sales model overnight, Tippett cautions. Imparting new skills, introducing new incentives & rewards and establishing new roles and all the other steps the transformation entails will require at least 2 or 3 years, he says.

Most importantly, perhaps, it’s people’s mind-sets right across the company that need to be altered – from the top management to the traveling salesman. If that’s done, anything seems possible. “Organizations, are not a rigid structure but a harmonics network able to adapt themselves when the environment changes”.

It is clear that your customer has evolved, the question is: have you?

SFE & Commercial Excellence USA 2012 aims to help you to tackle this difficult transition with 6 focused sessions and 6 workshops to choose from over 3 days.

http://www.eyeforpharma.com/sfeusa/conference-event-brochure.php

“Just seen the 2012 line-up. Once again eyeforpharma has brought together the people most relevant to my business. A group of us from Roche will attend so we can hear the strategies and customer view on our commercial approach – looking forward to it!’

Andreas Claus Kistner, Global Head of Commercial Architecture – Roche

If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll know that Pixels and Pills recently sat down with Ben Sawyer, Director of the Games for Health Project and organizer of the Games for Health Conference to talk about how gaming can improve the Pharma and Healthcare industries. In addition to his work with Games for Health, Ben is also the founder of the Serious Games Initiative and his own game design firm Digitalmill. So he’s a man who knows his way around a joystick. Here’s what Ben had to tell us about the “state of play” for Pharma today:

Pixels & Pills: We’ve written often on Pixels & Pills about the popularity of the Gamification trend in Pharma. But you feel that it’s important to differentiate between “Gamification” and “gamin”. What do you thin are the differences and is Gamification a positive trend?

Ben Sawyer: My concern is that Gamification just skims the content of successful video games without embracing deeper concepts that make them effective. It also makes things too easy for people developing these projects. Gamification is easy, real games are hard and sometimes more costly to develop.

And what do we mean by Gamification, anyway. There are a lot of advocates for the trend in the Pharma and Healthcare space who seem content to mouth the latest jargon. But is Gamification actually using the principles of gameplay or is it simply borrowing tiny traits from games and actually utilizing age-old industrial psychology? Leaderboards and other gamelike interface elements are not necessarily game components.

P & P: So you see the Gamification trend as a negative force?

Sawyer: Not necessarily. Gamification is great at creating interest in subject matter. My concern is that Gamification is like advergaming. It obscures things and makes organizations think they are creating real games.

I do think that gamification and games merge nicely when things like sensor-based technology are involved.

P & P: So you think Pharma hasn’t really embraced the games space, yet?

Sawyer: I think we’re getting there. And we’ve had some breakthrough moments. Projects like REMISSION or FOLDIT. Those were breakthrough moments. But the challenge now is to figure out how we create games that improve everyone’s health as opposed to improving the lives of specific disease state sufferers.

P & P: What do you think holds the industry back from the kind of “breakthrough moments” you’re describing?

Sawyer: I think Pharma has traditionally been biased towards education, whether that’s educating sales forces, health care professionals or patients. Game designers approach projects very differently. For them it’s all about experience and entertainment. I’m not saying education can’t be fun or a fulfilling experience. But it’s easy to focus too much on communicating data and forget about making something engaging that people want to come back to after their first experience.

P & P: So the Pharma industry just needs to hire a bunch of traditional game designers?

Sawyer: I think if that was the answer, J & J or Merck would have done that a long time ago. But I don’t think the breakthrough moment I’m talking about will come from duplicating the kind of games people can find at their local GameStop. If we could take the research capabilities and process engineering resources that the major Pharma companies have and marry them with the creative engineering and psychological skills possessed by game designers then we could find a really exciting convergence point. Companies like Bayer with their Didjit game that syncs with the Nintendo DS are already starting to play in this space.

P & P: Do you think there will be more of that kind of collaboration between Pharma and the gaming companies?

Sawyer: I think there’s a great joint opportunity. At this point I think there are way too many gaming apps. In contrast, there are relatively few Pharma apps for a huge community. Companies like Rockstar and EA are scared of the space because of the regulatory concerns and the huge opportunity cost. But Wii Fit would have been a top 10 drug launch the year it came out (and it came to market a lot quicker than the traditional drug development cycle). This may be one of those strange bedfellows moments where the opportunity is so great that these radically different companies pool resources to take advantage of the potential of the market.

P & P: So we can look forward to Super Mario Doctors, sometime soon?

Sawyer: Well there is Dr. Mario but If I were Nintendo, I’d be trying to create the next big Wii Fit like breakthrough as fast as possible.

Coming off of TEDMED, we’re inspired to check out some of the other cutting edge conferences that are departing from the Pharma Conference norm. One that’s been around for a while but looks better than ever this year is the 8^th Annual Games for Heal Conference.

Gamification has been a hot topic in Pharma for the past year but conference organizer Ben Sawyer of the Games for Health Project promises that the scope of his event goes far beyond this. The conference has “three pillars of programming” including:

• ENABLE PLAY – focusing on games accessibility
• MOBILE SERIOUS GAMING
• LUDICA MEDICA – focused on personal development and training

Sawyer has got some serious talent presenting at his conference as well. Among the superstar speakers he has lined up are:

• Bill Crounse Senior Director of Worldwide Health for Microsoft talking about what’s next for Kinect
• Constance Squire of the Office of Science & Technology Policy on how video games can address national challenges
• Jane McGonigal Author of REALITY IS BROKEN talking about SuperBetter a new game based, social app designed to improve health

And Sawyer has also got some folks with serious gaming cred like Tish Shute of Stupid Fun Club introducing cutting edge concepts like integrated gaming.

We had a fascinating chat with Sawyer about the potential of games in the Healthcare space that we’ll share with P & P readers in our next post In the meantime, if you’re looking for an event that’s more than just the same old digital Pharma dialogue circle the date and get yourself to Boston for Games for Health!