January 2011 Archives

This morning, Deirdre Connelly, GlaxoSmithKline's President of North America Pharmaceuticals, gave an important speech at the Center for Business Intelligence 8^th Annual Pharmaceutical Compliance Conference in Washington, D.C.

In her speech to 350 healthcare compliance executives, consultants and attorneys, Deirdre addressed head-on the pharmaceutical industry's failure to always fully appreciate the evolving expectations of our stakeholders.

In outlining her views on what both our company and industry must do to regain the position of trusted contributor and provider of healthcare, she emphasized that we must first start with a core set of values that go beyond just compliance with laws and regulations. At GSK, those values are:

§  focusing on what is in the best interests of patients

§  being transparent about working relationships

§  operating with integrity

§  respecting those we work with and serve

Putting these values into practice, Deirdre contends, means those in healthcare must be willing to "break the mold" and conduct business differently; it must commit resources to make values part of the organizational culture; and leaders must continue to challenge themselves and their organizations to keep pace with the needs of those they serve.

In her speech she cited examples of how GSK has taken on that agenda and is transforming the way we do business to meet the expectations of healthcare providers and patients. As examples, she described how we are voluntarily reporting payments it makes to healthcare providers for speaking and consulting. She relayed how GSK has changed our funding of continuing medical education and that we now only support CME for non-profit organizations and how we are moving away from providing bonuses for our sales representatives based on prescription volumes.

Click here to check out the full text of the speech

On Thursday this week, GSK is pleased to support an important discussion on health information technology, or what has become known as HIT. It has been two years since the HITECH Act was passed, authorizing $27 billion in new funding for HIT. The incentive program for physicians and hospitals begins this year and runs through 2015, paying up to $63,000 to each provider who implements the program and meets quality measures. GSK believes that HIT will play an essential role in changing the current state of the US healthcare system--helping to enhance quality and lower overall healthcare costs.

The event, organized by the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), is called "The Future of Healthcare Innovations and Health Information Technology." It will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, pulling together healthcare stakeholders including policymakers, payers, providers, health IT professionals, health services researchers, patients, and medical educators, along with GSK, to discuss how HIT can best help improve care while lowering costs.

From the AJMC press release:

"For years, experts have speculated on the opportunities for broad adoption of HIT to improve healthcare delivery," said Dr. Jain, who in addition to co-hosting the event was the guest editor of the AJMC HIT special issue. "With passage of the HITECH Act, this speculation has grown into an ongoing, multi-sector, industry wide transformation. This event will shed light on this transformation and give additional direction to innovators who seek to participate in it."

In addition to sponsoring the live event, GSK sponsored a special issue of the AJMC, which can be viewed online at http://www.ajmc.com/supplement/managed-care/2010/AJMC_10dec_HIT.

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. Throughout this month, many organizations dedicated to women's health are focusing their efforts on raising awareness about cervical cancer. 

GSK has been a strong supporter of cervical cancer awareness. Last year, we launched a campaign to raise awareness among young women about how to help prevent cervical cancer. Check out our Front Porch video on our You Tube channel.

Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. among women in their twenties and thirties and every 47 minutes a woman is diagnosed with cervical cancer, yet cervical cancer is a preventable cancer.

January often represents a time of year to recommit ourselves to better management of our health. Let's be proactive about our healthcare in 2011 and we can start by reminding ourselves, or the women in our lives, to talk to a healthcare provider about cervical cancer.

Our CEO, Andrew Witty, has an article in this month's Health Affairs.  The abstract is below--for the entire article, click here.

Diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries play a large role in stalling economic and social development. Pharmaceutical companies are driving crucial research into new vaccines and medicines; however, although there is an imperative for industry to research new therapies for diseases of the poor, the financial returns are often seen as limited. This is beginning to change. The pharmaceutical industry and the public sector are thinking differently than before about how to improve access to medicines and advance research and development for neglected diseases. The public and private sectors must work together to develop a wide range of innovative tools, partnerships, and approaches.

What if you hired a personal health coach who knew you as well--or better than--you knew yourself...and came armed with a wealth of health information?  And what if this coach was available 24 hours a day? 

A new interactive virtual health coaching tool called 'HealthCoach4Me' is now available at no cost to consumers at www.HealthCoach4Me.com.  This new website, which we recently launched, offers consumers online health coaching, and can help them set, track, and reach their personal goals for general health and wellness, prevention and management of chronic conditions. 

Health coaching is an increasingly popular method of guiding individuals to discover and address their own uncertainty about health behavior changes, and can help them build their capacity to achieve short- and long-term goals. Health coaching is based on the "whole person" approach and helps individuals identify the motivation needed to get excited about working on their goals.  It also provides encouragement to address obstacles along the way. 

With www.HealthCoach4Me.com, the virtual coach helps break a user's goals down into small achievable steps.  In addition, each user is provided a customized dashboard for tracking progress. 

Please view this press release for additional information.

Check out this week's Forbes magazine for an extensive article on the changes we're making at GSK.  A few clips:

"This industry is under huge pressure," says Andrew Witty, GSK's chief executive..."There is no point in dreaming about being in a different world.  We have to change." ... His solution is to focus on customers and diseases that the industry long ignored, while rebuilding research from the ground up.

Witty has abandoned me-too drugs--shutting down research into depression, anxiety, pain and other mature categories--and created 40 tiny biotech-style units that have autonomy.  They are focusing on the types of high-risk science that a few years ago would have been seen only at innovative biotech companies with nothing to lose.  Glaxo has projects on everything from stem cells to gene therapy for rare diseases to an emerging area called epigenetics, which looks at how genes are modified.

Drug companies fixated on maintaining high prices in the West have long resisted lowering prices in poorer countries so more people could afford them.  One of Witty's first moves in 2009 was to create a tiered system that lowered prices for various drugs for emerging markets, including medicines for asthma, allergies, hepatitis and bacterial infections.