For 25 years, Liz Cermak worked for Johnson & Johnson, one the biggest names in the pharmaceutical business. Now, she works for one of the smallest. And she says in terms of marketing, it’s giving the Goliaths a run for their money.

Cermak is the executive vice president of POZEN, Inc., a Chapel Hill-based pharma developer/manufacturer with no more than 30 employees. Since coming onboard in 2009, she has overseen the company attain FDA approval on two authentic combination drugs: Treximet and VIMOVO—for migraines and osteoarthritis, respectively. No small feat, even by J&J standards.

But what Cermak is most excited about is POZEN’s fresh and unique approach to pharmaceutical marketing.

Instead of sending sales representatives to hospitals and doctors’ offices to promote their products, Cermak and her team pitch most their medicines online.

“The reality is that the current sales rep model of traditional pharma is obsolete,” Cermak said to a packed house at the Marketing Mondays series held at The Research Triangle Park HQ earlier this week. “Eighty-six percent of US doctors go online for product info now, and 82 percent are on smart phones.”

In-person sales pitching can be inefficient, she said, because all health care workers are overbooked and overbusy, and representatives must endure a costly wait just to get two minutes in with the doctor.

Two minutes. That’s the average rep-doc face time. But online, the average time spent by a physician on a single ePromotion activity is eighteen minutes.

Cermak has three rules for digital pharma marketing:

1. Develop products that deliver real value to customers.

Be relevant and learn from your customers. Understand their needs and study their e-behavior. Most pharmaceutical companies need to broaden their apertures here, she said.

2. Make them affordable and accessible.

POZEN recognizes the strains today’s pharmaceutical pricing puts on doctors and patients today alike. As should go without saying, costs must be kept low to compete and to demonstrate a respect for your consumers.

3. Engage with customers in a meaningful but highly efficient way.

This means using social media and online public networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, but also more exclusive, MD-only communities like Sermo or CogNet. Use push and pull marketing tactics; see what works and what doesn’t.

Cermak calls this “Pharma 3.0”.

“The change isn’t coming,” she said. “It’s here.”

We’ve seen this before with other industries, as well. Amazon now sells more books for the Kindle than it does in print, and Netflix’s superior, customer-based business model has Blockbusters closing up shop around the country. The global economy is now decidedly digitalized and will only continue to shift that way.

Now, as POZEN enters the final testing and approval phase for its latest development, an ulcer-reducing aspirin compound dubbed PA32540, a viral campaign is already underway to spread the word.

Cermak stressed there is still utility in face-to-face interaction, though. Sending sales reps is important to explaining drug principles to doctors, learning about clinic demographics, and building a personal rapport with primary care physicians. However, there are not enough reps to go around as it is now, and focusing sales online will drastically cut down their jampacked schedules.

The biggest advice Cermak has for pharma companies looking to try this new approach is to not be afraid to experiment. To take risks. And to lose.

“Be ready to try and fail,” she said. “Absolute ROI of a given digital initiative cannot be accomplished with a high degree of certainty.”

No one expected it to work out for POZEN. But no one expected 30 people from Chapel Hill to get two drugs FDA-approved in two years, either.

Salix soars on rifaximin data

Shares of Salix Pharmaceuticals are up more than 50 percent since the Morrisville company, which specializes in gastrointestinal treatments, announced results from two late-stage studies.

The studies showed rifaximin works better than placebo in treating non-constipation irritable bowel syndrome. Salix already sells rifaximin for traveler’s diarrhea under the name Xifaxan.

Treatments for non-constipation IBS generate about $2.2 billion in annual sales, but patients and doctors are looking for more choices with fewer side effects.

Salix stock dropped below $6 a year ago as the company struggled with generic competition. The day the rifaximin study results came out, Salix shares soared as high as $21.34. Since then, they’ve been close to $20 and attracting the attention of Credit Suisse pharmaceuticals analyst Catherine Arnold, who has tagged Salix an appetizing acquisition target for large drugmakers looking to boost revenue.

Pozen hires executive to broaden its scope

Pozen, a Chapel Hill drug development company, hired a chief commercial officer to develop licensing and marketing strategies for its drugs in development. Elizabeth Cermack, a former Johnson & Johnson executive, specializes in sales and marketing.

Founded in 1996, Pozen has long relied on partnerships with large drugmaker to help develop and market its medicines. Migraine pill Treximet, its first drug to receive regulatory approval, is sold by GlaxoSmithKline, which also helped develop it. Pozen also has a partnership with AstraZeneca to develop and bring to market Vimovo, an experimental painkiller that is easy on the stomach.

But the company, which never ventured into sales and marketing before, recently announced plans to broaden its scope and fly solo bringing to market its family of aspirins that promise to be gentler on the stomach.

GSK waits while competition gets ahead

GlaxoSmithKline, which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, hopes to get approval for Cervarix, a vaccine that blocks a major risk factor for cervical cancer, before the end of the month.

A Food and Drug Administration panel recently recommended the vaccine get cleared for sale after a series of delays. If the FDA follows the recommendation, Cervarix would become available in the U.S. three years after Merck’s version Gardasil was approved.

GSK is also still awaiting FDA approval of its H1N1 vaccine. Four competitors already got the regulatory nod.

Geography of innovation

President Barack Obama has asked Congress to appropriate $100 million in fiscal year 2010 to renew economic development efforts at regional innovation hot spots.

A report supports those efforts, saying that areas such as the Silicon Valley, an information technology cluster, and biotech clusters in Boston and the Research Triangle Park area, are critical components of national competitiveness.

The federal government already funds about $150 billion of research and development per year.

North Carolina’s biotech industry, which is concentrated in the Triangle, is considered the third largest by number of companies. But the Triangle is also home to information technology and medical device clusters that together created more than 5,000 jobs between 1998 and 2006, according to the report.

Deals and regulatory actions

Bayer CropScience added a research collaboration to other recent deals aimed at coming up with better genetically modified crop seeds.

The German company, which has its U.S. headquarters in RTP, will partner with Precision BioSciences of San Diego. The deal is the third in a row to improve Bayer CropSciences’ ability to compete in the GM seeds market.

In recent weeks, the company bought rights from Texas Tech to improve the fiber quality from cotton seeds and announced it would buy its RTP-neighbor Athenix.

More about why Bayer CropScience is dealing here.

Other company news:

• Cornerstone Therapeutics, a Cary company specializing in respiratory treatments, received approval to buy the rights to an antibiotic from Oscient Pharmaceuticals, a Massachusetts company that has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• The Food and Drug Administration told Pozen that the Chapel Hill drug development company’s request to approve PN400, a painkiller that causes fewer stomach ulcers, is complete. The FDA notice triggered a $10 million milestone payment from British pharma giant Astra-Zeneca, Pozen’s partner. Pozen filed the request in June and the FDA is expected to rule on it in 2010.
• BioDelivery Sciences International will close its research laboratory in Newark and consolidate operations at corporate headquarters in Raleigh. All four positions in Newark will be eliminated to save about $1 million in operating costs per year. More about BDSI here.
• Shares of Icagen get a lift after a mid-stage study shows that the Durham drug development company’s experimental asthma drug eases allergy-related attacks.

Reality shows aim at preventing HIV spread

Family Health International, a Durham organization that aims to improve public health worldwide, is behind two reality shows to prevent the spread of HIV.

“Bongo Star Search” is a competition for would-be pop stars in Tanzania and “You’re the Man” is a competition that challenges stereotypes of what it means to be a man in Cambodia.