SUMMARY

Pfizer and Sermo -- a Web-based community where physicians share observations from daily practice, discuss emerging trends and provide new insights into medications, devices and treatments -- recently announced a "strategic collaboration designed to redefine the way physicians in the U.S. and the healthcare industry work together to improve patient care."

To answer the many questions raised by this collaboration -- including concerns about off-label communications -- Pharma Marketing News invited Daniel Palestrant, M.D., founder and CEO of Sermo, to be a guest on a recent Pharma Marketing Talk podcast.

This article is based partly on that interview as well as other sources.

Topics and issues covered include:

• The Story of Sermo
• Doctors Are Lonely
• Sermo's Secret Sauce
• Sermo's Business Model
• From Contention to Collaboration
• Mining the Wisdom of the Sermo Crowd
• Guidelines
• The Off-Label Promotion Issue
• Key Opinion Leaders