Marketing
OCD’s “Know Your Numbers” campaign pushes forward
Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (OCD), in partnership with the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD), published consumer-survey results and a report revealing the state of blood test health literacy in the United States, with strategies to support patient education and empowerment. The survey and report are part of the Know Your Numbers campaign, which was launched in conjunction with National Health Literacy Month last year. Among the survey’s findings were that nearly 90...
Designing Medical Device Software for the Millennial
2010 was a catalyst year for computing. When Apple launched the iPad tablet computer in April, it brought the keyboard and mouse one step closer to extinction. Similarly, with Windows 7, Microsoft added true touch-screen support to desktops, tablet PCs, and smartphones. Google made an entrance as well, with Android, an operating system for smart phones and slates. Touch screen will be the dominant user interface for years to come, according to DisplaySearch.com, which monitors and reports on...
Goldman Sachs initiates coverage of IVD companies
Investment banking firm Goldman Sachs (New York) has initiated coverage on the following six IVD companies: Alere, Cepheid, Gen-Probe, Hologic, Myriad Genetics, and Qiagen. In an equity research report, Goldman Sachs analysts discussed various factors that will affect the IVD industry both positively and negatively. According to the analysts, one of the factors that will contribute positively is the transition to molecular testing. “Advances in knowledge around the genetic underpinnings...
AdvaMedDx Advocates for Industry
Today a nurse can test a senior citizen for C. difficile in a long-term-care facility. Within hours, the test indicates that special care is required to prevent the spread of this healthcare-associated infection. In the near future, a molecular assay may be able to detect ovarian cancer in a 45-year-old woman with persistent stomach pain, before the cancer spreads to other organs.   Advances in genetic and molecular research are leading to many new and promising technologies like these,...
IVD firms advised to increase marketing efforts
            The IVD market may yet suffer some effects of the depressed economy, according to a report published in May of this year by Kalorama Information (New York City, www.kaloramainformation.com). The report, titled “In Vitro Diagnostics in a Recessionary Economy,” argues that the IVD industry's relative immunity to economic turbulence is not unlimited and may weaken as other industries experience difficulty and patients cut back on seeking...
Policies guiding the advertising and promotion of IVD products
    Regulations & Standards         Philipp Novales-Li, DMedSc, PhD, DPhil, RAC, is manager of regulatory affairs at Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. He is currently based in the San Francisco Bay area and can be reached at novatika@hotmail.com. The advertising and promotion of medical devices, including IVDs, are subject to both FDA and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) authority. FDA views IVD manufacturers' promotional activities as a form of labeling,...
Digene ads stoke interest in direct-to-consumer marketing
  Digene's Corp.'s (Gaithersburg, MD) ads appeal directly to patients. To IVD industry observers, the fanfare with which Digene Corp. (Gaithersburg, MD) rolled out a direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising campaign for its DNAwithPap human papilloma virus (HPV) test in March seemed to herald a new age in diagnostics marketing. Although DTC ads have become commonplace for pharmaceutical companies ever since FDA revised its guidelines for prescription drug advertising on television in...
Marketing a better mousetrap
  "Build a better mousetrap," so the saying goes, "and the world will beat a path to your door." In the IVD industry, better mousetraps come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Clinical researchers are constantly discovering markers to detect and diagnose diseases and medical conditions that were previously unfathomable, and product developers in a variety of settings are working hard to improve the sensitivity and specificity of those markers in commercial formats....
Web sites increase market share, keep customers satisfied
Dade Behring’s Chest Pain Perspectives Internet site, at http://www.chestpainperspectives.com, contains practical information used to market the company’s cardiac assays. It's not exactly the dot-com bonanza that device marketers expected several years ago, but IVD manufacturers are discovering that marketing by means of an interactive, informative Web site can help them to reap the benefits of having a more informed public. Dade Behring (Deerfield, IL) recently...
Introduction to consulting services
To keep up with the needs of an ever-expanding and increasingly complex medical marketplace, the IVD industry's efforts to develop new and more-accurate diagnostic tests are also expanding at a rapid pace. Today's challenge to industry is to design and produce practical new laboratory assays that integrate biotechnology, microprocessor, and software technologies. Because bringing such new IVD products to market is becoming increasingly complex and expensive, many IVD companies—especially...