Big Pharma and Twitter = Big joke!
May 22nd, 2009 by 
David E. Williams of the Health business blog
In Why Drug Companies Prefer Twitter Over Blogs BNET Pharma points out that there are only four big pharma blogs, including GSK’s brand new site.
Drug companies thus far have been far more interested in Twitter than blogging. Check out AstraZeneca’s Twitter stream: 420 updates! They’re addicted! There’s a reason for that … which I’ll get to below.
I agree that there’s not much blog activity from big pharma. But the Twitter presence is even more pathetic. Let’s have a quick look at the top 10 pharma companies and their presence on Twitter.
- Pfizer: http://twitter.com/pfizer is about Pfizer but maintained by someone else who doesn’t seem to be affiliated with the company
- J&J: http://twitter.com/jandj appears to be two friends or sisters, http://twitter.com/j&J has not been registered (until someone reads this and does it), and neither has http://twitter.com/johnson&johnson
- Bayer: http://twitter.com/bayer exists and is maintained in German
- GSK: http://twitter.com/gsk is maintained by Mark, http://twitter.com/glaxo is maintained by Tinus, http://twitter.com/glaxosmithkline looks to be held by a squatter who’s made no updates. (Update: As of May 18, GSK is using http://twitter.com/GSKUS to point people to posts on its new blog.)
- Novartis: http://twitter.com/novartis is used to pump out press releases by Novartis. This is probably the top of the heap for big pharma
- Sanofi-Aventis: http://twitter.com/sanofi-aventis is not registered, http://twitter.com/sanofi is owned by a person named Sanofi, http://twitter.com/sanofiaventis is just like http://twitter.com/glaxosmithkline, i.e., blank
- Roche: http://twitter.com/roche appears to be run by someone in Japan, http://twitter.com/hoffman-laroche is not registered, and http://twitter.com/hoffmanlaroche looks like http://twitter.com/sanofiaventis and http://twitter.com/glaxosmithkline
- AstraZeneca: This is BNET’s big example. I could be wrong but it doesn’t look like the site they cite http://twitter.com/AstraZenecaUS is actually run by the company. http://twitter.com/AstraZeneca looks a lot like the US site, and the bio refers to the company as “they,” so I think it’s just a hobbyist like the Pfizer site.
- Merck: http://twitter.com/merck is like the other blank, squatted sites
- Abbott: http://twitter.com/abbott is run by Bruce
Twittersquatting isn’t exactly like the old cybersquatting. It should be easy for these companies to at least claim their Twitter URLs, so why haven’t they even done that? It doesn’t seem like much to expect.
PS –I’ve posted a new entry showing the status of the top 10 branded drugs and the story is similar.
Posted in Blogs, Pharma | 
9 Comments »
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 am
Good rundown, David. I’ve researched this quite a lot for a wiki I maintain of all of the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media programs out there including Twitter. Those listed on the wiki have all been confirmed as official by at least one company employee. Here’s the link: http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare-social-media-wiki/
Best,
JMR
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
“AstraZeneca” seems to mostly post news stories unfavorable to AZ, so I don’t think it is affiliated with the company.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Thanks for pointing out the wiki, Jonathan. After going through it I see J&J has http://www.twitter.com/JNJComm (as in communications). That made me think to look up http://twitter.com/jnj, which turns out to be run by Tief im Suden, which links to Mt 18:20 Today, “Daily glimpses from the writings of the 19th century awakening & other theological musings”
Similarly Roche has http://www.twitter.com/Roche_com
What do you make of Marilynn’s speculation that the AZ site isn’t affiliated with the company?
David
May 25th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
@AstraZeneca is not affiliated with AZ in any way. Just take a look at the stories and you’ll see why. @AstraZenecaUS is from the company, as best as I have been able to tell from my research. Roche_com is for sure affiliated with Roche.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:49 am
[...] Big Pharma and Twitter = Big joke! [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 7:09 am
[...] Big Pharma and Twitter = Big joke! I demonstrated that big pharma’s presence on Twitter is pathetic. Few of the top 10 companies [...]
May 28th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
[...] Big Pharma and Twitter = Big joke! (Health Business News) [...]
October 29th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
[...] I’ve been playing around with Twitter in the past few months, trying to see what it’s about, who’s using it and how. In all this time I’ve encountered only a handful of Twitterers who regularly mention microfluidics (although there are many who cover nanotechnology). Searches for Lab on a Chip turned up a few more accounts, but the total is pathetically small, much smaller even than the number of pharma companies on Twitter. [...]
January 12th, 2010 at 8:23 am
dude this Health Business Blog » Blog Archive » Big Pharma and Twitter = Big joke! mind blowing.
I prefer this too jokesmsquote.com