PR professionals involved in client counsel for infectious disease understand that this therapeutic arena requires a highly specialized approach. Clearly it is not business as usual for the PR executive. Communications pathways are specialized, and word-of-mouth, disease management newsletters and data briefings are primary modes for delivering targeted messages.
More than in other therapeutic categories, data "wins the day." Evidence presented during major medical meetings or published in important journals is essential to motivating influential advocacy groups and sophisticated journalists to pay attention to your client's drug.
What's more, in speaking with these groups there truly is a shared agenda. Both the advocates and the pharmaceutical company want the same thing - effective therapies.
Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are increasingly turning to PR as they compete in the high stakes infectious disease arena. The estimated worldwide market for antivirals is expected to reach $20 million by the year 2002.
This means more pharmaceutical companies are looking to heighten awareness about their current protocols and new drugs that are in the pipeline. These are prime opportunities to focus PR initiatives.
The HIV/AIDS Arena
HIV/AIDS is a key example of the strategic challenges PR professionals and marketers face within the infectious disease category. While headway has been made with combination therapy and a "long-term disease management" approach to HIV/AIDS, patients and physicians anxiously await new drugs promising fewer side effects, better efficacy (potency and durability), and reduced cross resistance potential with current treatment.
In addition, hepatitis issues - which are linked to HIV/AIDS - are driving a greater demand for information.
PR practitioners must approach this challenge with subtlety and insight. If they are looking to share information with the HIV/AIDS advocacy groups, they must recognize that it is a two-tiered community: structured and unstructured.
This community has access to up-to-date HIV/AIDS information through a variety of sophisticated channels including AIDS Service Organizations (ASOs), newsletters, the Internet and medical meetings.
Many within this community are seasoned patient advocates who are highly educated about all aspects of the disease. These patient thought leaders have become the gatekeepers of HIV/AIDS information to people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) and their caregivers.
They are often the first to report on key drug data and are integral to a drug's positioning within the community. PR agencies must counsel clients on the optimal way to work with these leaders who expect to have substantive dialogue based on data.
The best relationship is formed when the PR agency and pharmaceutical client keep lines of communications open with these groups. Of particular importance is sharing in-depth clinical trial information.
For example, this community welcomes a review of a drug's protocol, its inclusion/exclusion criteria, trial endpoints and the statistical significance of results.
Information on such product milestones as patient accrual, FDA actions, a drug's position on guidelines must be readily available.
Whenever possible, these groups like to be involved in key decisions before they are made - which further cements the relationship with the drug marketer. Clients should also be counseled on the value of establishing a community advisory board (CAB) to formalize its interaction with the various local groups.
The assignment of at least one internal liaison within the pharmaceutical company will further demonstrate commitment to the community.
: As with other disease categories, there are "unstructured" advocacy groups that can be reached by focused, grassroots initiatives.
This targeted local outreach can include communications via church groups, town hall meetings and local consumer media. When appropriately informed, all groups can help work with a pharmaceutical company and its PR representatives to meet shared needs.
The message here is clear. The infectious disease advocacy groups and patients are highly motivated to learn about and lobby for drugs and information. They can heighten awareness of a drug, be critical to its success, and partner with a company if they truly believe in the data.
That is why top-notch healthcare PR professionals and pharmaceutical companies should go beyond traditional relationships to achieve success and credibility in the growing and critically important field of infectious disease.
Ilyssa Levins is chairman and chief creative officer at GCI Healthcare, a global full-service healthcare firm in New York. She is responsible for global new business development, new ventures and acquisitions and worldwide marketing. She can be reached at 212/886-3500.