Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : September 2001

Focus on Pharmaceutical News Sources

The high stakes healthcare marketplace has spurred the development of many specialized news sources to serve the competitive intelligence needs of pharmaceutical companies and industry watchers. Databases assembled in the DIALINDEX®/OneSearch category PHARMIND and the DataStar CROS group 65 are good examples. Given the lengthy list of choices, selecting which resources to monitor on an ongoing basis can be challenging. What criteria can be used to single out the best news databases to match your own, and your company's, specialized research requirements? A comparative checklist might begin with examination of three basic characteristics in each file: full-text accessibility, fast reporting, and subject focus.

Full-Text Accessibility. Ideally, an online news service will provide full-text articles for immediate display, not just citations and abstracts or summaries. In addition to meeting demands for rapid document delivery, full-text access in news files on Dialog and DataStar means that each keyword is separately searchable. This feature enables prescreening of newsletter contents for items of interest that may not be uncovered through perusal of article titles alone.

Speaking of titles, another aspect to examine when comparing each file's relative accessibility is how informative are its records when viewed in short, browsing format? Cryptic titles are, alas, a hallmark of many industry news sources published in hardcopy format. The rationale behind this may be that, when viewing paper pages, readers automatically augment sparse leads by rapidly scanning opening sentences immediately below. Unfortunately, this characteristic does not translate well into the online environment. Users of Dialog Interactive Alerts, for example, rely on browsing titles alone to identify key content. In this context, it's difficult to judge relevance when a source typically relays only a company name in article titles or uses general headings such as "FDA in Brief" or "Legislative Roundup." This is why it's important to investigate whether a news source offers informative titles. Databases such as Business and Industry™ and Gale Group PROMT®, which routinely supplement sparse titles with keywords and phrases to enhance accessibility, are, in consequence, popular choices for Alerts.

Yet another factor to take into account when gauging relative accessibility is whether a database provides value-added indexing. For example, in files where company names are systematically identified in a separately searchable field in each record, Alert results will be much more precise. If you plan to monitor company names that contain common keywords, such as "gene therapy," "home diagnostics," and the like, relying on retrieval of words embedded in text, versus separate indexing, can produce many irrelevant results. Resources such as Prous Science Daily Essentials and IMSworld R&D Focus Drug News, each with systematic company indexing, are good choices for current awareness searches involving potentially ambiguous corporate names.

Controlled indexing of other factors can also be critical in news database selection. For example, both Prous Science Daily Essentials and IMSworld R&D Focus Drug News offer drug therapeutic category indexing using predictable terminology. In contrast, Alert strategies constructed to monitor developments related to specific indications (cardiomyopathy, diabetic nephropathy) or more general conditions (heart disease, renal disorders) must, in text-only files, include multiple synonyms. Consistent "event" (e.g., line extensions, licensing opportunities) and "concept" indexing (market share, market size, sales, consumption) is also a bonus in several news files, including Business & Industry and Gale Group databases.

Fast Reporting. Delving into the second of our basic selection criteria, fast reporting, requires more than a quick comparison of update frequency. What is the lag time between public availability of information and online dissemination in a given source? Does e-publication coincide with printed issue release, precede hardcopy, or, perhaps, lag behind due to a moratorium policy? Some databases, such as PHIND, Adis Newsletters, and Espicom Pharmaceutical & Medical Device News, provide previews of articles days before their publication in hardcopy counterparts.

Industry news sources may be updated daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly. In general, daily updating is an indicator of more up-to-date reporting. Good spot tests to assess time lag are quick searches to check when news of an important new drug approval or company merger first appeared in various resources.

Subject Focus. Last but not least, candidates for current awareness monitoring require careful scrutiny for subject focus or "slant." Competitive intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry involves tracking developments on both the scientific and commercial fronts. No single source is likely to cover all aspects equally well.

Prous Science Daily Essentials, as its title implies, targets the scientific arena, covering important new patents worldwide, major scientific meetings, and research results early in the drug pipeline process.

As the focus shifts to clinical developments, Adis InPharma's timely reporting of new findings in human pharmacology and therapeutics is particularly valuable. Database records often provide lengthy, evaluative summaries written by Adis staff, augmented with controlled index terms. Adis Reactions makes it easy to isolate first reports of adverse drug effects (search first adjacent to report in titles). Adis also adds the keyword serious to titles of pertinent references. Records flagged in this way report reactions meeting FDA criteria for serious effects: those that result in death, severe or permanent disability, or hospitalization. Adis Reactions also includes drug interactions in its scope, with discussion of their significance and clinical management strategies. In Adis PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News, the emphasis shifts to cost-efficacy data. Records report on pharmacoeconomic studies of a particular drug or class of drugs, identify regulatory developments pertinent to the topic, and provide critical commentary on the clinical relevance of studies or the implications of government activities. Available as separate files on DataStar, all three Adis newsletters are combined into one database on Dialog (File 428-429, current and archival).

In the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry News Database (PHIND, PHIN), Scrip and Clinica report on a broad spectrum of scientific, political, regulatory, legal, and financial news of vital interest to their respective drug and device industry audiences. Coverage includes informed commentary, critical evaluation of current events, and trend analysis. BioVenture View focuses on news events in the biotechnology industry. ERA News highlights developments in European regulatory affairs likely to affect the human and animal drug or device markets. Genomika, added to PHIND in 2001, tracks business developments in genome research, monitoring the nucleic acid and protein analysis industry. Instrumenta, also added earlier this year, is a current awareness source focusing on the analytical instrument and laboratory equipment world.

IMSworld R&D Focus Drug News identifies significant commercial and financial news, in addition to drug pipeline reporting. Value-added indexing makes it easy to isolate company names, therapeutic categories of products, and frequently requested events or "milestones," such as licensing. Available as a separate database on DataStar (IPNR, IPNA), records incorporated into File 445 on Dialog can be singled out using the Limit qualifier /NEWS.

For in-depth coverage of FDA activities, U.S. professional and trade association news, and managed care organization issues, F-D-C Reports is particularly noteworthy. Each newsletter in the F-D-C collection also provides up-to-date information on companies, products, markets, personnel changes, financial performance, and scientific or legal developments of importance to businesses involved in health care in the United States. Full-text titles online include: The Pink Sheet (prescription pharmaceuticals and biotechnology), The Gray Sheet (medical devices, diagnostics, and instrumentation), The Rose Sheet (toiletries, fragrances, skin care), The Blue Sheet (health policy and biomedical research), The Tan Sheet (nonprescription pharmaceuticals and nutritionals), and Pharmaceutical Approvals Monthly. Consult F-D-C's separate database, Health News Daily, for complementary coverage on a day-to-day basis.

ESPICOM Pharmaceutical & Medical Device News is a good source for market intelligence related to healthcare technologies. Company financial results, R&D funding, and product developments are regularly featured, along with discussion of market trends. The database includes the full text of Medical Industry Week and biweekly issues of Pharma Company Insight.

DataStar offers two German language databases relevant to industry users and not available on Dialog. Aerzte Zeitung Online includes the full text of the daily medical newspaper Aerzte Zeitung and the biweekly publication Arzneimittel Zeitung. Both sources report on new therapies, national and international health policy, company news, and market data. The Pharma Marketing Service database, also in German, offers weekly updates on advertising, public relations, and sales promotions, as well as company news, product developments, and health policy issues.

With so many subject specialty news databases available on Dialog and DataStar, it would be easy to overlook the importance of more general business news files as Alert sources for the pharmaceutical industry. Nonetheless, there are several additional, highly focused publications of potential interest in files such as Business & Industry and the Gale Group family of resources. Business and Industry includes full-text selections from PharmaBusiness, Pharmaceutical Executive, Chain Drug Review, Chemist & Druggist, Community Pharmacy, Antiviral Agents Bulletin, and Marketletter (also available as a separate database on DataStar). Approximately 80 of the more than 600 full-text sources cited in the Gale Group Newsletter Database are devoted to biomedical and pharmaceutical topics. Examples include Applied Genetics News, Biotech Patent News, Bioworld Today, Gene Therapy Weekly, Hepatitis Weekly, Medical Materials Update, and Worldwide Biotech. Gale Group PROMT provides full-text selections from many of the same titles, as well as Dermatology Times, Drug Topics, BioPharm, and Genetic Engineering News.

Once discovered, Business DateLine is usually also a much favored resource, because of the unique perspective it can provide into local business conditions in many U.S. and Canadian metropolitan areas. Regional business publications included in Business Dateline can help uncover investment opportunities, activities of state supported programs such as small business development networks or biotechnology centers, marketing and advertising leads, and even important details about multinational corporations not reported elsewhere.

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