Part II – Why pharmas don’t do social networking

If you understand how pharmaceuticals are sold, this is not surprising. What is surprising is that a lot of people seem to think it’s just a question of time before pharmaceutical companies like GSK get into social media.  I claim that a fashion trend doesn’t make a business case. The buzz of social media and […]

Less regulation, increased data security

Data security compliance regulation such as PCI DSS 1.2 is a double-edged sword – as a security checklist it’s an important step for the payment card industry but too much regulation, especially for small to mid-sized businesses is too much of a good thing. As my maternal grandmother, who spoke fluent Yiddish would yell at […]

Imperfect knowledge security

Keeping the organization robust in a highly dynamic threat environment Our capacity to predict will be confined to . . . general characteristics of the events to be expected and not include the capacity for predicting particular individual events. . .Yet the danger of which I want to warn is precisely the belief that in […]

Pharmas, Web 2.0 and regulation

For a change – ethics based regulation that differentiates between the medium and the message. Dr. Jean Ah Kang, works at DDMAC and is in charge of Web 2.0 policy development. She speaks very well at her interview with  Mark Senak, a regulatory affairs lawyer ( eyeonfda.com ).  Here is the podcast:  FDA’s views and […]

Off-label marketing

I recently read an article by Adriane Fugh-Berman and Douglas Melnick about Off-Label Promotion, On-Target Sales In the pharmaceutical industry, there are two ways to market an approved drug for a new use: the “indication” route—performing studies necessary for regulatory approval—or the “publication” strategy, which stimulates off-label prescribing by using research “to disseminate the information […]

Designing a data security system

User-Driven Design versus User-Centered design Alan Cooper, in his book The Inmates are Running the Asylum, draws a distinction between user-centered design and user-driven design. User-driven design is about collecting, prioritizing and implementing a system to the user requirements – we’ve all been seen software development projects where the requirements spiraled out of control and […]

The role of user accountability and training in data security

In this article I will show that DLP technology such as Fidelis XPS, Mcafee DLP, Verdasys Digital Guardian, Websense Data Security Suite and Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9 – is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective data security. I submit that effective data security is a three-legged stool of: Monitoring – using DLP […]

Imperfect knowledge security

A few months ago I wrote about The Black Swan of Security – how major data loss events have 3 common characteristics – 1) A major data loss event appears as a complete surprise to the company . 2) Data loss has a major impact to the point of maiming or destroying the institution (note […]

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: The DoJ and SEC Are Coming

There is compliance to industry regulation like PCI DSS 1.2 which is aimed at consumer protection and then there is compliance to government regulation like the FCPA which is aimed at maintaining a high ethical level of behavior and ensuring a level playing field of business. For a large global company like Monsanto, Merck or […]