Eye on FDA Talks with FDA's Division for Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications (DDMAC) about Pharma, Social Media and Web 2.0

As many of you know, the life sciences industry, one of the most highly regulated industries of the economy has been hesitant and reluctant to embrace social media to reach out to patients, physicians and the lay public. This is because the US Food and Drug Administration, specifically Division for Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications (DDMAC), has been mute on the subject and hasn’t issue one iota of guidance on the use of social media in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical devices/diagnostic industries.

Mark Senak, a regulatory affairs lawyer and owner of the blog eyeonfda.com, invited Dr. Jean Ah Kang, Special Assistant at DDMAC in charge of Web 2.0 policy development to talk about FDA’s views and ideas about social media and its use in the life sciences industry. Listening to the 15 min podcast would be, according to Mark, “time well spent” for social media advocates in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices/diagnostics sectors.

Hat tip and much “love” to Mark who wrote “BTW, I absolutely expect waves of love for this (the podcast)."

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Listening!!!!!!!!!! 

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BioCrowd Launches Several New Features

 As many of you know, we launched BioCrowd about six weeks ago. Our membership is steadily growing and several early members suggested changes and improvements to the site. In typical Web 2.0 fashion, we listened to those suggested and decided to add several new features!

First, we added a new section to the home page called BioCrunch. BioCrunch will feature “fresh content” developed by BioCrowd members. Items that can be posted to BioCrunch include but are not limited to podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, manuscripts and possibly poster presentations. With this in mind, we urge interested BioCrowd members to send us stuff that you wanted featured in BioCrunch and shared with the rest of the community.

Second, you can now upload multiple files with discussion posts and add a single file to comments. Also, it is now possible to preview your comment or discussion posts (before you hit the send button) to insure that they are grammatically-correct and typo-free. 

Third and perhaps most importantly, we decided to publicly open the site so that RSS feeds from BioCrowd can be imported to other social media applications including blogs, Facebook and Twitter. It also means that member profiles and discussion posts are searchable by Google. However, all posted resumes and job listings will remain private and only available to BioCrowd members, i.e. you have to join to view them.

We are planning other improvements to BioCrowd—stay tuned for new updates!

Until next time….

Join Us and Be Part of the Crowd!

 

BioCrowd Founders Talk About Why They Created a Network for Bioprofessionals

For those of you who want to learn about  why Vincent and I created BioCrowd, listen to our very first podcast!   Anybody who is interested in doing a podcast for BioCrowd, please send us a note along with your ideas and when you might be available for recording the session.

Hope to see you at the Bcrowd!

 

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Listening

BioCrowd Rings in the New Year

BioCrowd, a new social networking site for bioprofessionals was officially launched today.  We are still making last minute fixes and cosmetic changes so please bear with us over the next few weeks.

BioCrowd's main goal is to provide a venue for career development and business interactions for students, scientists and other bioprofessionals.  We plan on adding new applications and functionality as the network evolves.  That said, please let us know what you think, what you like and don't like and how we can improve BioCrowd to meet your needs.

Thanks and I hope that you become a member of the BioCrowd!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!

 

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BioCrowd-Beta Is Ready For Launch

I want to let my readers know that a beta-version of BioCrowd is ready for review. For those of you who may not know about BioCrowd, it is a social network for life sciences students and professionals that was created by Vincent Racaniello a Professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and me. 

The reason we started BioCrowd was that Vincent and I both perceived a need for undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to more effectively network with established scientists and life sciences professionals to further advance their careers or find jobs. The social interactivity of Facebook and the business connectivity of LinkedIn are what led to the creation of BioCrowd.

We are looking for a few brave women and men who want to help to beta-test BioCrowd before we launch.  If you are interested, please visit us at www.biocrowd.com and drop us a line.   For those of you who don't want to participate at the moment, but want to learn about our progress, you can follow us on Twitter and FriendFeed ,

Until next time...

 

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!