Pfizer reaches out to doctors' social network

After nine months, the USA-based on-line social networking community, Sermo (Marketletter January 22), has initiated discussions with global drug behemoth Pfizer, over ways that the advertising-free group can interract with a commercial drugmaker. Sermo, which claims over 30,000 physicians enrolled, provides a forum where they can discuss work-related issues, such as difficult-to-diagnoze patient symptoms or adverse drug events. Unlike many other ventures of this kind, there is at present no advertising which, the Financial Times reports, contributed to the dismissal of the network by many drugmakers when it was launched in September last year.

In a statement, Pfizer said it "plans to pursue a number of key objectives through this collaboration, including: 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 on-line; engage with the Food and Drug Administration to develop guidelines for Internet communication with health care professionals.