iPod Educational App

The iPhone user interface with its multi-touch screen offer a friendly, simple and advanced experience that is of great advantage for educational applications.

Tamooz has developed an educational tool for Medtronic spinal chord stimulation treatments. Medtronic is a world leader in medical technologies and pioneering therapies, and has developed Neurostimulators that treat pain by sending mild electrical impulses to the epidural space near the spine. These impulses replace pain with a tingling sensation.

The application provides a simple and helpful tool that imitates how the spinal cord moves within the spinal canal according to patient various body positions. Developed to show how changes in body posture affect the spacing between the spinal cord and vertabrae, this is a quick and easy tool to help physicians and their patients better understand how spinal neurostimulators are affected by patient movement.

This app leverages the accelerometer in the iPhone and iPod Touch to make it easy to demonstrate how a spinal cord stimulation device can automatically increase and decrease stimulation to help manage a patients' pain without the patient needing to constantly reach for a programmer.

Gilad Karni

Medical Devices and Clutter

An exhibition is a great opportunity to expose medical devices to potential users. Booth space can work well to present new features, launch of new devices and hands-on demonstration.

However, when walking in congress halls, many times one will find that big machines create a cluttered and uninviting space inside the booth area. Delegates can easily be turned off by a booth that seems to be choked with bulky apparatus.

This is another example where less is more. A booth has to have enough space that is welcoming and allows for pleasant atmosphere. If budget allows, go for ample space that shows all relevant devices with enough room for hospitality. If not, consider which devices are absolutely necessary and which are not.

Another approach is to remove clutter by the use of electronic forms of information. The combination of printed materials, posters and panels for every device can easily choke the booth space. Here, transfer of data into computerized presentation will free space and also create an attraction by its own right.

An example that worked well, is the booth that Tamooz designed for CaridianBCT at Medlab. CaridianBCT is a leading global provider in the blood banking, therapeutic apheresis and transfusion medicine industries. For the exhibition at Medlab, Tamooz has designed an architecture that locates the devices in the booth front, and balances the presentation by creating a 3D roofed architecture that defines hospitality space. The combination of architecture, simple shapes and brand color palette create a well balanced booth that is both inviting and achieves thorough presentation of devices.

Gilad Karni

How Many Followers on Twitter?

A quick look at pharma and healthcare twitter accounts reveals that the number of followers is measured by hundreds up to a few thousands of followers for any pharma account at corporate level.

For example, Pfizer has about 5,800 followers and Johnson & Johnson 3,400 followers.

It might seem as big numbers, but when you take into consideration that followers can be patients, physicians, investors or simply the general public, the number of followers for each type of stakeholder is relatively small. If, for example, you could measure how many followers are actual patients from the US, probably it would appear as relatively low numbers.

There is a relation between twitter content and the numbers of actual followers. One of the accounts that I like to follow myself is provided by Roche. Here the followers recieve not only PR releases, but also posts directing to interesting articles, and there is a clear effort to use twitter to actively communicate with the following community.

Gilad Karni

Brand in Motion

A short branded animation is a good tool to be used at scientific meetings, round tables and booths.
A nice cost effective option is to create an animation from existing brand images and materials and add to them motion, text messages and music.

Here is a good example of such a brand animation that was created for the Reptiva drug and worked well to bring the brand to life.




Gilad Karni

Misleading Drug Ads

In 2009 the FDA's unit that regulates advertising has sent 41 enforcement letters to crack down on questionable marketing claims, twice the number sent in 2008.

For example, When drug maker Allergan came out with the new eyelash thickening drug Latisse last year, it put on a marketing blitz featuring actress Brooke Shields. The Latisse Web site showed her longer, thicker lashes from the drug.

However, the site barely mentioned Latisse's side effects, which can include hair growth outside of the treatment area, a permanent darkening of eye color and bacterial infections that can lead to blindness.

In response the FDA issued an official warning letter in September 2009 and scolded
Allergan for its "misleading" claims about Latisse, which it said "omit and minimize" the drug's side effects. It demanded the company fix the web site immediately.

This and other 10 misleading ads published by Forbes.

Gilad Karni

Registries

Medical registries are systematic collections of data about certain diseases.
They have become very important tools for physicians who can access relevant medical information of many patients with same diagnossis and treatments. The records within registries enables to follow patterns in disease diagnosis, treatment and/or survival patterns over time.

There are registries for cancer diseases as well as other therapeutical areas. A recent article in the NYT has a detailed overview of a registry of cystic fybrosis patients and its contribution in fighting the disease.

As registries become more widespread, it is important for companies to review their role and cooperation with such initiatives. Whether it is data or sponsorship that pharma provides, the benefits lie with the connection between the medical community and the industry.

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