Pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. has struck a partnership deal with Sermo Inc., a social-networking site for licensed physicians, to make the way it reaches doctors more efficient.
Under a joint venture, Pfizer will work with Cambridge-based Sermo, and its participating doctors to agree on terms allowing Pfizer's hundreds of staff doctors to view postings and reply.
Privately-owned Sermo, launched in September 2006, is an online community where doctors exchange knowledge with each other, according to a press release, made available by Sermo.
The Pfizer pact is the company’s first with the pharmaceutical industry however Daniel Palestrant, Sermo's CEO said it is in talks with other companies as well.
Growing influence
Pfizer sees Sermo as a way to supplement communication with doctors that now relies heavily on medical journal articles and posting of clinical trial information on government registries.
Dr. Michael Berelowitz, a senior vice-president who oversees Pfizer's physicians said: "It creates a social discourse around the results, which is very different than a rather cold transmission through other media, where you don't have that two-way communication."
Berelowitz said Pfizer also has allied itself with Sermo because of the site's growing influence in medical circles.
Collaboration
The companies said in a press release dated Monday the collaboration would create open and transparent discussion between pharmaceutical professionals and the 30,000 physicians using Sermo.
Pfizer will tap into a social network of doctors that resembles the popular website MySpace, but with the focus on professional concerns rather than personal information.
Pfizer was not available for comment.
October 15 2007
Related Links
Pfizer
sermo
Bookmark with:
- Digg
- Reddit
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Newsvine
Sign Up to Exec UK now for FREE!