Drug companies now have an online foot in the door,
writes Nicole Manktelow.
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

Getting a foot in the doctor's door has always been the challenge for pharmaceutical companies, but online marketing systems now offer another way to promote drugs to GPs.

Australian online pathology service eClinic has developed a website, myRep, that allows pharmaceutical companies to deliver information and materials direct to doctors..

Doctors can order samples and access patient support materials and clinical papers, according to Saurabh Mishra, joint managing director and co-founder of eClinic (www.eclinic.com.au).

"It's is an accountable marketing channel," Mishra says. The service also includes many over-the-counter and natural products. However, it is from the pharmaceutical companies that myRep may find the most willing advertisers. Pharmaceutical companies are certainly keen to find new ways to reach busy doctors. They still send representatives to take part in a process called "detailing", in which reps pitch products and deliver samples.

eClinic's Saurabh Mishra

"Electronic detailing" or "e-detailing" is a trend that has emerged in the United States. "Drug company reps already keep details of doctors and what their prescribing habits are in so far as they can glean them," Australian Medical Association vice-president Dr Trevor Mudge says.

Most websites ask visitors for information, for personalisation and marketing reasons. They also monitor how their pages are viewed. As more services for doctors move online, strategies to target and tempt are destined to enter the relationships between GPs, their providers and suppliers.

"We remain concerned about the basic issues of privacy and improper incentives, or data-mining and the selling of doctor's habits," Dr Mudge says. "There's a real risk of drug companies writing to patients saying 'we notice you use drug X, but have you considered using drug Y?' It's a real risk. It's happening around the world."

Like many online services, e-detailing offers efficiencies and convenience as well as a way for marketers to find out more about their customers. There is potential, at least, for some systems to track prescribing habits and educational preferences of their users.

The two-year-old eClinic has more than 3500 doctors around the country logging in to get faster results from participating pathology outfits via the Internet.

Detailing and e-detailing are not the only forms of decision support available, and only time will tell if GPs will embrace e-detailing as much as they have other sources such as the National Medicines Handbook or even the decision support available within the main prescribing software programs.

"MyRep is not the only place they can find out about the products, but it's the only place they can do something about it," Mishra says.

There is potential for integrating e-detailing with the major prescribing programs; eClinic may consider this option as it has already integrated its pathology results service into Medical Director.

"Yes, we should be able to do it, but our plan for now is to try to get there on our own by making myRep as comprehensive as possible in its own right," Mishra says.

"But if the feedback shows the doctors want it integrated, then we will do it."

Integration on a one-way basis would be preferable in the view of the AMA.

"Providing information to doctors and patients? That's great," Dr Mudge says. "But if it also provides information back about patients or doctor's prescribing habits, we worry because the supplier of the information has little if any control over its usage.

"Leakage down the data pipe has to be plugged."

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