Pharma Influence Over ePatients: Marketing Tactics That Worked for Physicians are Working for Patients, But It's Called "Patient Centricity"

I attended ExL Pharma's ePatient Connections conference (#ePatCon on Twitter) in Philadelphia this past Thursday and met a few interesting people. Although some pundits doubt the usefulness of these conferences, it's always good to get out of the box of your office and talk to people - you might learn something. Let me share what I learned.

A majority of the ePatients attending were presenters sponsored by my friends at WEGO Health who paid their expenses. WEGO Health funds its support for its Health Activist community through transparent, community-vetted advertising and sponsorships from health companies: research, content development, education, events, conferences, distribution programs, ad networks and more.

Every ePatient I spoke to at the conference wants a pharmaceutical company to hire him or her. As one person told me, "I want to turn my avocation into a vocation." That person has a Twitter account (@tvsoccerdad) with less than a thousand followers. Other ePatients boast of having a few thousand followers on Twitter. But it's their experience and passion that really qualifies them as paid consultants to pharma.

Indeed, many ePatient tweeters and bloggers are being paid by pharma. One example is the German MS patient blogger/journalist I wrote about some time ago who contributes articles to "Living Like You," a Novartis Pharma AG website. The problem is, most of the time these ePatients do not reveal the nature of their relationship with pharma (read "Transparency is Good in Theory, But Not in Practice").

What other ways can ePatients work with pharma?

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23andMe Appoints “e-Patient Davide” to the Newly Created Position of Chief Patient Officer

I just received the following press release via email.

23andMe Appoints "e-Patient Davide" to the Newly Created Position of Chief Patient Officer

Appointment is a First for the Silicon Valley Pharmaceutical Company

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., – April 1 2015 – 23andMe today announced the appointment of Davide deBellagio, also known as “e-Patient Davide,” to the newly created position of Chief Patient Officer.

e-Patient Davide & Unidentified Executive

“The appointment of a Chief Patient Officer at 23andMe, the first for a Silicon Valley pharmaceutical company, shows our commitment to go further than mainstream pharma¹ in meeting the needs of patients and our investors,” said Steve Woz, an unspecified 23andMe executive. “Interactions with patients are a source of strength -- and wealth -- for the company and e-Patient Davide’s appointment will help ensure the patient perspective advances our profits and our approach to meeting the unmet needs of our investors, which include Roche and Johnson & Johnson.”

e-Patient Davide -- a pre-Alzheimer’s survivor -- is an international keynote speaker on healthcare who consistently earns extraordinary fees from consulting with various healthcare organizations.

“I am incredibly honored to be 23andMe's first Chief Patient Officer, or as I like to call it, Chief Patient Kibitzer,” said e-Patient Davide. “The Internet has altered the balance of power in healthcare. Patients are managing their own health and, in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry, making some money to boot.”

According to e-Patient Davide, his responsibility will be to further elevate the perspective of the patient within 23andMe by “kibitzing,” which is Yiddish for offering unwanted advice or commentary. There’s no better way for a patient to impact the future healthcare offerings of a pharmaceutical company than by “budding in” to ensure the unique priorities and needs of patients and caregivers are “top of mind” for senior executives. According to unnamed sources, 23andMe executives must subject themselves to daily “kibitzing sessions” delivered by e-Patient Davide as he roams the halls of the company and barges unannounced into executive suites.

“Hopefully, my unwanted input will not go unnoticed,” said e-Patient Davide as he posed for a photo op with Wojcicki outside 23andMe’s Mountain View headquarters.

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