Tweet Tweet

Social networking is everywhere. So much so that the word itself it likely to become one of those overused buzzwords that defines 2009 when we look back on the year in December. However as identified in the blog "Eye on FDA," pharma has been slow to jump on the bandwagon. Only a small portion of pharma/biotech companies have either a Facebook page or Tweet on a regular basis. Because there is so confidentiality in the business, I'm not sold on the importance of such social networking for those companies themselves. They could try and sell their products through such sites, but the products should be sold through therapeutic value (I digress there). On the other hand that same blog brought up an even more interesting point that pharma/biotech companies should be investing in applications for smart phones that help with product compliance (such as daily reminders to take medication or measure blood pressure). I started thinking about that and realized that this could even be applied to clinical research.....

The cost of developing applications is fairly minimal if you have the right people. On the clinical research realm, applications could be developed and downloaded to trial participants that document product dosing compliance, adverse events, and remind them of study specific procedures. This could include reminders to take (or not take) medication prior to a visit, to complete a diary daily, etc. The list of possibilities is really endless, but if developing those apps is not your cup of tea, there are other options....

Sites could use the hottest, now almost ubiquitous social networking sites: Twitter and Facebook. Right now both can be used to inform potential participants about upcoming studies, but how can it be better utilized? Maybe sites could develop individual Twitter or Facebook pages for individual studies. These sites could host drug dosing instructions, tweet or instant message reminders to report AEs, or maybe even inform participants about an upcoming consent change for which they would have to contact the site to get more information. These social networking sites have applications that can be downloaded to smart phones so people get information on the go, and best of all...they are FREE!! All that would be required is for someone at a research site to establish the account, customize it, add study participants, and update it as appropriate.

Keep in mind, however, that because of confidentiality laws sites could not have the subscribers to the site public because full names are listed. Also, study specific information posted may have to be IRB approved, so if you consider this...be aware of IRB regulations. Those two minor (facetious) hurdles aside, clinical research should absolutely find ways to immerse themselves in social networking because the generation of today and tomorrow are/will be linked to the world through smart phones and computers, not newspapers and phones like the past 100 years.