LAM. Pharmaceutical Corp., a tiny firm hoping to compete in the highly fragmented wound-healing market, has hired RxCentric to help it launch its new hyaluronic gel via the Internet. L.A.M. is betting that the approach can effectively but relatively inexpensively showcase a product that management believes is clinically superior to the offerings of much larger companies.

Hoping to give the pharmaceutical industry a new channel for promoting its products, MedExact Inc. is launching a series of country-specific reference sites for doctors. The sites will combine treatment information aggregated from a variety of credible sources with detailed promotional material supplied by MedExact's pharma clients.

When correctly used, Internet-based communication channels are overall potentially more cost-effective per minute of interaction than physical details. Their value added, however, is in many instances not an overall cost reduction of pharma-physician interaction, but a means to complement physical detail effectively by tailoring the message and medium not only to the physician, but also according to the product, therapeutic area and lifecycle stage.European markets are poised for exploiting those channels more systematically: physicians in many countries are increasingly open to receiving web-based communications from drug companies. In addition, the technological conditions (bandwidth, Internet usage) are close to being fully in place, with many technology providers gearing up to penetrate the European territory. But to take full advantage of these tools, European drug firms must properly integrate them within the current marketing mix and in doing so effectively leverage the valuable information about physician behavior that can be acquired via e-detailing transaction. In addition, companies will need to contemplate significant changes in their sales and marketing organizations that will integrate e-detailing with traditional sales rep activities and with the overall sales and marketing effort.

{In Vivo} summarizes the technologies of several medical companies founded recently, including Belgium's [AlgoNomics NV], a new entrant in the biocomputing and bioinformatics arena. [CoPharma Inc.]'s mission is to develop drug and biological products through joint ventures with discovery firms. Launched in February 2000 with $2 million from Sanderling, Alta Partners and Graystone, [Cythera Inc.] will develop therapies based on the transplantation of functional human cells grown{ in vitro}, offering an alternative to the use of donated human tissues. [Embolic Protection Inc.] has developed a device, consisting of a guide wire and filter mechanism, to remove embolic debris. Denmark's [NsGene A/S] is a joint venture of NeuroSearch A/S and the University of Lund. [WebEBM] will offer evidence-based clinical guidelines for 400 diseases or conditions on its website.