Pharma, Physicians, and Sermo A Social Media Win-Win-Win!
A conversation with Daniel Palestrant, Founder and CEO of Sermo. We'll discuss how pharmaceutical companies have learned to interact with members of this leading physician social network site and what the outcomes have been for all concerned. (See guest bio.)
Background
In 2007, Pfizer Inc and Sermo, the nation's largest online physician community, embarked on a strategic collaboration designed to redefine the way physicians in the U.S. and the healthcare industry work together to improve patient care. Sermo is a Web-based community where physicians share observations from daily practice, discuss emerging trends and provide new insights into medications, devices and treatments.
Since then, other pharmaceutical companies have also engaged physicians via Serm to achieve the following goals, among others:
Discover, with physicians, how best to transform the way medical information is exchanged in the fast-moving social media environment
Create an open and transparent discussion with physicians through the innovative channel offered by online exchange
Engage with the FDA to define guidelines for the use of social media in communications with healthcare professionals
Work with physicians to develop a productive exchange between pharmaceutical professionals and the Sermo community
With several years of experience, Sermo can now report on the progress made toward achieving these goals.
Some questions/topics that will be/were discussed
Give us a brief history of Sermo and its mission.
What options do pharmaceutical companies have to engage physicians via Sermo? What's the most popular option?
Can you discuss a specific case study of how a pharma company benefited from the social media aspects of Sermo?
How have physicians benefited from pharma participation in Sermo? How has this improved patient care? Can you cite any physician comments that relate to that?
How do you see Sermo developing in the future?
Guest Bio
Daniel Palestrant is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge-based Sermo, Inc. As CEO, Daniel is responsible for the overall vision of the Sermo community and business. His main tasks focus on ensuring that Sermo is a valuable resource to physicians while building a profitable and socially responsible enterprise.
Daniel's first experiences with Healthcare Informatics came when he conceived, designed, proposed and managed deployment of CIBUR (CIGNA Internet Based Universal Resource), one of the first commercial Web-based healthcare resources for physicians and allied health professionals.
No stranger to the entrepreneurial side of medicine, Daniel founded his first company, Azygos, Inc., in 1998. During that time, he successfully raised $2.2MM in funding and deployed the company's first clinical application on schedule and on budget, before selling the company to BioNetrix in May of 2001.
Daniel has a B.S. in biology from Johns Hopkins University, completed medical school at Duke University, and trained in General Surgery at Beth Israel-Deaconess Hospital, in Boston before leaving to launch Sermo.
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Daniel Palestrant is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge-based Sermo, Inc. As CEO, Daniel is responsible for the overall vision of the Sermo community and business. His main tasks focus on ensuring that Sermo is a valuable resource to physicians while building a profitable and socially responsible enterprise.
