Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg

Social Media - some trends within the pharma sector

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The pharma news letter Pharma Online organized a conference yesterday about the use of social media within the pharma sector (”Sociala medier inom läkemedelsområdet” - join the Linkedin group with the same name and/or view comments on twitter with hashtag #lmsocmed).

Over 60 participants, mostly of course from pharmeceutical companies gathered to listen to

- Hans Kullin from Eklips (the social media guru at the conference),

- Rikard Pellas from LIF, the association of the research based pharmaceutical industry in Sweden (the expert on how to apply the LIF’s ethical rules to social media),

- Elisabeth Eklund and Henrik Bengtsson from Delphi (lawyers who could explain at least what shouldn’t be done…),

- Myself, describing three different experiences Pfizer have had with social media (”can you feel my pain“, Dizza Tobak, and this blog), and

- Hanna Brodda, editor of Dinamediciner.se

As you can see, a fairly broad selection of speakers. But the conference would not have been as good if the audience would not have participated the way they did. Really good discussions!

Some reflections from my side include the very clear message that social media grows enormously fast, e.g. Facebook has over 800 million users today, only last year 100 billion pictures were uploaded on Facebook, and there were more than 1000 billion showings of videos on YouTube during 2011. It is difficult to really understand the huge possibilities and both positive and potentially negative consequences of this…

I have written blog posts on social media use before (see for instance the 2011 posts Oct 26 regarding Worldfavor, Oct 6 regarding some Pfizer experiences, Aug 24 on the use within health care, April 5 on stakeholder dialogue, and from 2010 Nov 24 also on stakeholder engagement). You know that my opinion is that Social media is not really something that dramatically changes what “we can and what we cannot do” when it comes to communication. The same rules apply to these communication channels as to the old ones. This was also clearly stated by both the lawyers from Delphi and by Rikard Pellas. The difference however is of course that everything is much faster: It reaches out to everyone, and everything once posted on the net seem to be there forever. So although the same rules apply our own culture and our internal guidelines for the use of social media have probably not been able to develop as fast as the social media platforms have. It was good to see LIF’s guiding document how the ethical rules should be understood in the social media world (see this link for details).

Potentially due to the lack of the internal guidance documents, the pharma industry have been very careful (some would say scared and slow) in starting to use social media platforms in their communications, marketing, and CSR strategies. Some companies have however slowly started to adapt to the changing media environment and I feel proud that Pfizer is one of the leaders in the industry. See for instance our Corporate Facebook page, and follow us on http://twitter.com/pfizer. And by all means, go to the Facebook page of our initiative Can You Feel My Pain, or view some of my favourite uploaded contributions from teenagers involved in the Dizza Tobak project (for instance “Love this way to die“).

So although we may feel unsecure in the new media environment, and especially how to manage issues such as reporting of adverse effects, it should be obvious for everyone that the development cannot be stopped… And if we had not understood that previosuly, I think Hanna Brodda’s presentation based on her personal experiences and experiences from running the site Dinamediciner.se made it clear. Our final and most important stakeholder, i.e. the patient, have dramatically changed his/her behaviour the last years. They are out their on the social media platforms and they discuss illnesses, medicines, individual doctors, alternative treatments etc. We may not like all those things and we may disagree on several issues, but we just have to understand that it happens and we need to manage that. And yes there are several reasons to be scared of the development, but on same time there are several positive things and great opportunties with the revolution as well!

More on the new Swedish PiE data…

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On January 10, I gave some comments here at the blog to the press release and report regarding IVL’s, Umeå University’s, and Swedish EPA’s new data regarding pharmaceutical residues in incoming waste water to waste water treatment facilities, in the effluent from those facilities, and in receving water bodies as well as in some cases also in fish. The study is “breaking news” in today’s issue of one of Sweden’s most influencal science and engineering weekly news magazines, NyTeknik. Ny Teknik presents, in addition to a very similar discussion as was found in the original press release, also an interesting article on new waste water treatment technology experiments at Sjöstadsverket performed by scientists from IVL and KTH.

One thing that I also want to comment is that both on the front page of the NyTeknik newspaper that arrived in my mailbox this morning as well as on their website, another news article regarding pharmaceuticals is highlighted just next to the worrying news about presence of pharmaceutical residues in the environment. But this article is presented in a very “positive” way: “Take a pill - and skip your work-out training”. “The work-out pill is soon a reality“…

I do often find it somewhat disturbing that reports about pharmaceuticals are either “scary alarms” or “magical innovative news”. It has however rarely been as clearly shown as on the front page of today’s NyTeknik… I would prefer a more balanced discussion, both regarding the worrying reports as well as the promising innovations. Life is very rarely completely black or white!

News re Pharma and the All-Party Committe on Env Objectives

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The expert group on Pharmaceuticals and the Environment, working to support the All-Party Committee on Environmental Objectives, met last Friday for a final discussion on the recommendations for objectives to be delivered to the All-Party Committee. I participate in the discussions representing LIF (the research-based pharmaceutical industry in Sweden) and I have to say that I really feel that the discussions have been open, honest, interesting and sometimes challenging. Exactly as it is supposed to be when different stakeholders meet!

Pretty much the same topics as were discussed on our meeting on November 14 were on the agenda now, and the final wording of the different proposals for objectives are being laborated upon. We will now all receive a final draft of the report including all proposed objectives allowing for our final comments. On February 1, the chairperson of the expert group, Christina Rudén, will give a presentation to the All-Party Committee. It will be very interesting to see what will remain unchanged, what will have been altered to some extent and what might even have been deleted completely when the All Party Committee publish its final report regarding the environmental objective “A Non-Toxic Environment” on June 15…

Stay tuned… This document, together with the outcome from ongoing environmental initiatives such as the ones in the National Pharmaceutical Strategy, will be very important to set the “Pharmaceuticals and the Environment” agenda for the coming years.

CSR trends in 2012

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 In the beginning of the year it is always interesting to “look for the trends” in different areas. When it comes to CSR and sustainability I recommend that you take a look upon the views presented by Niclas Ihrén in the Swedish on-line newsletter CSR-i-praktiken, and by Susan McPherson in her blog post in Harvard Business Review.

Their comments have helped me in my thought process regarding CSR platforms and programs. And as you know if you read my blog post from Jan 9, during 2012 I will both work on a further development of Pfizer’s CSR-programs and, within my part-time assignment at LIF, the development of a CSR-platform for LIF. Niclas’ and Susan’s comments are of course welcome in that work process!

Pharmaceuticals in the Environment - some new Swedish data

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A press release was issued yesterday from IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, in collaboration with Umeå University and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, regarding a study on pharmaceutical resudues, from 101 active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), in water. The study has also been commented upon in several news media, e.g. Dagens Apotek. The study looks upon incoming waste water to waste water treatment facilities, on the effluent from those facilities, and on concentrations in receving water bodies as well as in some cases also the concentration of APIs in fish (perch).

The results show that 92 out of 101 APIs could be detected in incoming waste water, 85 APIs were found in treated effluent leaving the treatment plant. 23 APIs were also found in fishes investigated and 26 APIs were found in drinking water.

Jerker Fick, at Umeå University, says to Dagens Apotek that the identified concentrations in drinking water are extremely low compared to therapeutic doses. Hence, there is no known risk for humans consuming drinking water. The study however states that the concentrations of some of the APIs in surface water could potentially impact water living organisms such as fishes.

As has been discussed for several years now, the type of impact, the degree of that impact to water living organisms, and potential consequences (especially on an ecosystem level) are however not known. I hope that MistraPharma and similar research initiatives could help us to understand these matters better, and also help society to identify, and specify, any potential further investments in the waste water treatment facilities.

Jan Christiansson, at the Swedish EPA, states in the press release that in addition to upgraded waste water treatment plants there is also a need for industry to design the APIs in a more “environmentally adapted” way, hence for instance allowing for faster biodegradation of the substances. I have commented on this matter of “green design” previously and I couldn’t agree more in principle, however huge difficiulties exist… It is not an easy task for our scientists to both make substances with good therapeutic effects, without severe adverse health effects, and simultaneously perfectly control the degradability. The substance should not degrade until it has given it’s intended medical effect, but preferentially directly afterwards. Not easy, but something industry tries to accomplish…

So I agree with Jan Christiansson that upgrades of certain waste water treatment plants will most likely be necessary, but we should also never forget to strongly communicate to the public, to all users of pharmaceuticals, that un-used medicines should never be thrown into the toilet! Un-used medicines should be brought back to a pharmacy for controlled disposal.