How Pharmaceutical Companies can Succeed with Risk Communication
Time to Emerge from the bunker mentality

Pharmaceutical companies are ultra cautious when it comes to  communicating about drug safety. Having seen the loss of sales  resulting from media reports on the risks of Vioxx, Celebrex and  hormone therapy, most drug companies now adopt a bunker mentality. Many pharmaceutical salespeople now believe that any discussions  about medications risks are bad for sales.

Instead of taking initiatives to help doctors explain about the risk- benefit balance to patients, marketing directors in drug companies  tend to restrict their risk communication to only what is demanded of  them by regulators. To make matters worse, drug companies have lost  public trust so that it's doubly difficult for them to say what needs  to be said: "Reports of side effects of medications are often big  exaggerations of reality."

However with increasing public awareness and more consumer scrutiny,  drug companies and their sales and marketing departments are now  facing a new business trend. They now have no choice but to embrace  risks.

This presentation offers innovative strategies that help drug companies get out of their bunker and more willingly communicate the risks of medications in an honest and objective way while showing the benefits alongside the risks.

PURPOSE:
*To help pharmaceutical companies emerge from their bunker and adopt  evidence-based, best practices to effectively communicate drug safety.
*To strengthen the bonds of trust and teamwork between pharmaceutical  salespeople and doctors.
*To support drug safety communications designed for the media and the  public.

DESIGNED FOR:
Providing an engaging keynote speaker who draws doctors to CME  programs and allows sales team members to build their relationships  with doctors.
Seminars for marketing departments who are proud of their product and  want to have the truth of their medications understood.
 Sponsored Entertaining Keynotes at medical conferences in all  specialties where risks are relevant.

TOPICS / POINTS COVERED:
The costs to pharmaceutical companies from media 'revelations' about risks from drugs.
Consequences of unrealistic patient expectations for '100% safe' drugs
The need to improve trust and ways to partner with doctors
Availability of specially-designed visual aids (as simple as pie charts and bar charts) that allow more effective communications with people of all backgrounds.
Free computer programs to customize risk perspective scales and palettes that clearly show the benefits as well as the risks. What can be done about the reality that facts loose out to fears.
Some initiatives that Big Pharma should do as a group
Some initiatives that the FDA should do to encourage better healthcare communications.
Questioning the sales strategy of 'present the benefits and then handle the objections'
Creating a new political environment for discussing drug safety. While admittedly this will not be easy, companies are coming to recognize that they have no choice but to embrace the risk and to learn the best ways of handling the public's skepticism as well as getting the FDA to provide support for the best communications initiatives.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
John Paling literally wrote the book on "Helping Patients Understand risks". He brings to the pharmaceutical industry his extensive experience of best practices for successful risk communication in other professions. He has considerable experience worldwide working with pharmaceutical companies.

This program can provide a welcome promotable event at medical meetings because of the unique visual style of Paling's presentations. He includes brief segments from his Emmy-Awarded,National Geographic wildlife movies (narrated live) to serve as memorable metaphors to reinforce the main points of his message. This ingredient also makes the program suitable for is both luncheon and dinner keynotes.
It also can be customized for day and half-day seminars. Other professional communicators will appreciate that short animal metaphors have immense power to help the message stick. For generations, peoples from across the world have used the power of animal stories to teach the most important lessons for societies.

Now meeting planners can add this appealing and effective ingredient to serious professional medical meetings.

RESULTS:
Pharmaceutical companies will learn new strategies for explaining drug safety issues to doctors and patients.
Reduction of patients' unnecessary fears and their unrealistic expectations.
Strengthen trust for drug companies.

SUMMARY SPEAKER'S BIO:
John Paling is a very experienced speaker at a wide range of healthcare meetings. He has advised major pharmaceutical companies worldwide on communicating the risks of medications. He is a uniquely qualified visual teacher with experience as an Oxford University professor and a National Geographic Society filmmaker. In his keynotes and seminars, he talks to product managers, marketing and communications divisions about how the exciting possibilities of providing easily understandable patient-focused information that makes things better - not worse for pharmaceutical companies.