The Week That Was: Bye-bye midtown uniform

Have you ever been in midtown Manhattan around lunchtime and wondered “Why are there so many men wearing the same vest?”
 
It’s an odd phenomenon that in this international, diverse city, you can walk down the street and see every other man wearing the “midtown uniform.” What is the uniform? Slacks + a dress shirt + a fleece vest (if you don’t believe us, see the aptly named Instagram account @midtownuniform).
 
This might seem like a relatively benign style choice, but this week, there’s high-drama in the world of men’s business fashion! Patagonia, the maker of many corporate-logo vests, will no longer produce branded apparel for financial services companies. "Due to their environmental activism, they are reluctant to co-brand with oil, drilling, mining, dam construction, etc. companies that they view to be ecologically damaging." Though it may have taken some vest-lovers by surprise, the move is on brand with Patagonia’s corporate persona as a standout leader on corporate social activism.
 
What was unexpected? Patagonia openly trolling Wall Street with this (now deleted) post: 

Money matters: the health pay gap

April 2nd was Equal Pay Day in the U.S. – the day that marks how long into 2019 women would have to work to “catch up” to what their male peers already earned in 2018.

How this impacts healthcare: 

• Women doctors made, on average, 27.7% less than their male colleagues. (Doximity survey of 65,000 physicians)
• Pfizer was the only healthcare company to get a passing grade in a recent cross-sector gender pay scorecard. (Arjuna Capital/Proxy Impact report on 46 companies)
• The influx of men into the nursing profession has contributed to a pay gap. (Fast Company’s profile of Kelley Rieger, founding member of Time’s Up Healthcare)
• “Nearly half of Black and Latina female healthcare workers earned less than $15 per hour…and a total of 1.7 million female healthcare workers and their children lived in poverty.” (NCBI study on the impact of a $15 minimum wage)

One more thing: Equal pay day comes much later in the year for many women. Here’s a helpful breakdown. 

 This can't be legal, can it?

With help from: Legal comms expert, Amanda Eiber.

What do anxiety, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, low libido and migraines all have in common?

They’re all conditions for which patients can now access prescription therapies online – through a new crop of websites that markets drugs directly to consumers. Instead of going into a doctor’s office, patients are filtered through “prescribing algorithms” and connected to physicians affiliated with the sites who can write a script remotely.

The potential appeal for patients is clear: There’s no doctor consultation in which you have to discuss potentially embarrassing conditions face-to-face, the medication is delivered to your door, it likely costs less, and is just overall easier to get.

And their marketing is pretty consumer-friendly: 

Confused about how this is legal? So were we. 

• A lot of these drugs are being prescribed “off-label,” for a condition different from that for which they were approved. For example, Roman markets sertraline (generic Zoloft) for premature ejaculation. Another site – Hers – touts a drug’s ability to help “manifest your badassery,” giving rise to questions about compliance with fair balance requirements that inform patients (a.k.a. customers) of a drug’s risk.
• The loophole? These companies define themselves to as “tech companies,” not healthcare providers, and are simply providing access to physicians who can prescribe drugs as they deem appropriate. As such, companies like Kick attest that “federal marketing restrictions on drugmakers do not apply.” Hmm…
• There is no one federal or state agency that regulates online prescription drug services. Instead, telehealth is governed by a patchwork of state laws. Coverage depends on a user’s location, and the prescribing physician must be licensed in the patient’s state.

What can the drug industry learn from these companies?

While a week of top-tier coverage may have nudged regulators to look into these companies, there’s no current roadmap for investigation or new regulations. So instead of waiting for regulatory action, drugmakers should recognize both the benefits and risks of these new approaches to patient marketing.

There’s something to be learned from these companies’ direct-to-patient content and branding – particularly for companies working in large, chronic conditions. While some of their claims wouldn’t pass muster in a medical/legal/regulatory process, pharma could benefit from a dose of “consumer speak.”

Drugmakers should also consider how they can better meet a clear patient desire for easier, more affordable access, while maintaining critical safety controls. 

Who wrote this? The managing editors of TWTW are Dana Davis, who has been craving Goldfish all week, and Randi Kahn, who checked out the cafeteria of the new Syneos Health HQ this week. 

Syneos Health Communications' Reputation & Risk Management Practice is a team of healthcare communications consultants, policy-shapers and crisis response specialists. We provide unique solutions to the evolving communications challenges in today’s healthcare industry, using evidence-based approaches to help our clients successfully navigate the most sensitive of situations.
Got thoughts? Contact Dana

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Image credits: cooperation by barurezeki from the Noun Project, House by Scott Lewis from the Noun Project, Amazon Echo by Sarah Stenseng from the Noun Project.

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