PM Society Annual Lecture – Margot James MP

Margot James cuts an impressive figure. I’ve had the privilege and pleasure to have worked with her and known her for a number of years and when I first heard of her ambitions to become an MP, I had no doubt that she would make it.

She pitched her talk on Thursday night at just the right level: emphasizing the overall thrust of the new Government’s healthcare policies, especially greater patient empowerment and reduced layers of bureaucracy, without getting bogged down in detail.

Despite the stifling heat of the room, it was an enjoyable evening and very worthwhile attending. So why was the pharmaceutical industry so poorly represented? We now have someone able to champion our industry’s cause sitting at the top table - at the very heart of government - yet only nine pharmaceutical companies decided to attend. Honourable mentions go to Lundbeck, Amgen, Napp, GSK, Takeda, Sanofi Pasteur MSD, AstraZeneca, Wyeth and especially Sanofi Aventis who were well represented.

As usual, the service sector was well represented, but clients really shouldn’t leave it up to their agencies to keep their finger on the pulse of the healthcare climate.

I do think the pharmaceutical industry needs to show more leadership.

Written by Neil Dickinson (@neil_dickinson)

Grace and the City

Don’t get us wrong, we like to scrub up well for our clients (on a good day Neil has even been known to have a shave for a meeting) but Wednesday involved three wardrobe changes, hair and make up plus a manicure as we welcomed a film crew to Grace HQ to help us with our new promotional film.

We thought it was high time we spread the word about Grace Digi, our exciting new digital offering for the pharmaceutical industry, so our crack team of creatives set to work on developing a storyboard that showcases who we are and what we do, in a most unusual way.

With filming complete and wrap party champagne flutes all washed up, the footage has now gone into post-production and should be ready in a few weeks. In the meantime here are a few clues as to what to expect.

“Don't sneeze... don't sneeze”

"A novel way of getting to work!"

"The Marlow's Got Talent auditions were in full swing"

Social media – a life-saver

We all know people who continually denigrate social media in all its forms, but perhaps the channel that comes in for the greatest criticism is Twitter. People generally fall into two very distinct camps: those who Tweet and those who voice strong opinions along the lines of “But I just don’t get the point – who wants to know what so and so is doing right now?”

There’s also a pretty big middle ground of floaters, many of whom have dabbled but then lost interest. I too was one of those until at the third ‘dabble’ it finally clicked and now I’m hooked.

But perhaps now there is a story that can answer the gainsayers when they shout “What’s the point?”

The recent transport chaos caused by the volcanic ash cloud left a courier carrying vital bone marrow stranded in Brussels. The following tweet was retweeted over a thousand times and did the trick:

AnthonyNolan URGENT! Our courier stuck in Brussels carrying marrow. Needs 2 get on Eurostar/tunnel from 8pm UK time 2nyt. Can u help? Call 07710 599 161”

The result was reported extensively in the press(See Article). So instead of too many tweets making a t**t, according to an inane comment from our new PM, you could say that so many tweets save a life, which I think is far more worthy (and accurate) message.