An Interview With A Pharmaceutical Copywriter – Part 1

DISCLAIMER: The interviews on this blog are for entertainment purposes only. They don’t reflect my opinion, nor are they reflective of my employer or in any way associated with either of us. If you draw that conclusion, I don’t like you.

I honestly don’t like that I have to watch what I say here, but I’ve chosen to not be anonymous, and this blog easily shows up on Google. I also have it featured in my LinkedIn. I hope that whatever content I put on this blog does not reflect negatively upon me. I hope to work in this industry as a copywriter for a long time so let’s just hope I’m not stabbing myself in the face. Because that hurts.

/DISCLAIMER

I’ve interviewed a consumer copywriter before. Been there, done that. Now, I’m offering a platform to an advertising group that doesn’t really speak out: pharmaceutical copywriters.

Now once again, I am going to put this disclaimer up.

OPINIONS IN THESE INTERVIEWS ARE NOT MINE. DO NOT MAKE ASSOCIATIONS WITH ME OR MY EMPLOYER. COOL OUT.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way (twice, mind you), I present an interview with someone we shall refer to as Pharmboy because they’d prefer to not be known. Pharmboy tends to get pretty worked up when talking about his job so I put some things in brackets and parens to help organize it all. I met Pharmboy online and unfortunately, don’t work in the same city but he seems like a cool dude if a bit vitriolic in his opinions. I did censor him a bit and I feel bad for doing so but there’s probably no way anyone would hire me again if they found me consorting with a fellow that hates everyone so much. So anyway, let’s get started.

Now you’re a pharmaceutical copywriter, which is in many ways, quite different from your better known, consumer counterpart. For those that don’t know, what exactly does a pharmaceutical copywriter do?

Ah, yes. What does a pharma writer do? I wonder that myself. I guess the easiest way to answer this is to say we write advertisements and sales tools for doctors. That is to say, much of what we do will never be seen by the general public unless they work in the healthcare industry.

 [Patient Materials - These are brochures, flipcharts, posters, etc. that are placed in a doctor's office for patients to read.]

There are, of course, exceptions, like if we make something for patients. These are the lovely brochures with happy faces or concerned faces you see littering your doctor’s office and sometimes even in your mailbox. They usually end with “Talk to your doctor today about Product Whatever” or “If you’re concerned about your bleeding eyes and/or weird yellowy discharge, maybe it’s time to talk to your doctor about…”

 [Branded Materials - They carry the pharma company logo. Depending on whether or not a piece is branded impacts what we can and can't say. This is regulated by the government and pharma regulatory bodies.]

These are examples of what we in the industry call branded materials, which means you’ll see a huge honking logo on the brochure/waiting room material plus safety information that the FDA makes us include. This safety information varies by product. A “BLACK BOX” product means your product has resulted in severe safety issues and/or deaths then you’ll have to somehow make prominent that issue. For example,  “Taking products like PRODUCT X may result in bleeding colons, and/or your heart going off like a cherry bomb”. Ok, so that’s branded.

[Unbranded Materials - We can say more in these materials because there isn't a direct agenda benefitting the pharma companies.]

Then there’s unbranded—which means we want you to recognize that maybe/hopefully you are sick with the disease our product treats but, according to big pharma, you remain “undiagnosed”. We want you to realize that you’re a candidate for our product so we’ll do everything visually and copy-wise to make that happen and urge you, once again, to talk to your ALL MIGHTY DOCTOR TODAY. Note the stress on TODAY because we want your money now. And that’s unbranded.

[Branded Physician Materials - Only doctors see these. Either left behind by a sales rep or detailed to a doc by a sales rep.]

Ok, now the shit we have to pour our hearts and souls into that the general public never sees…Visual Aids! Yes, these handy dandy, glossy, colorful monstrosities are what the drug reps bring in to help sell their drug to doctors.

Because big pharma thinks the people they hired are dumb as a bag of rocks we have to walk a tight-rope of being interesting to docs with super-duper words like “Efficacy” which basically means “Hey, it works, doctor!” We also have a bunch of other buzzwords like:

“Well tolerated” = no bleeding colons here or

“Generally well tolerated” = some bleeding colons, not many

“Familiar safety profile” = we’re about as safe as the other stuff you use, so why not use us?

We use Art Directors to help make charts, pie charts, and graphs that illustrate all these points plus, my fave, the MOA…MOA stands for mechanism of action which is basically jargon for “Hey, this is how this drug works, isn’t this exciting?”

Generally, doctors would say No. No, I don’t care how your drug does what it does, I’m out of doctor school and only care about the results so show me that “EFFICACY” page, bitches!

[Launch Brands - A drug that's not out yet but is going to come out soon, barring any major FDA blockades.]

All this differs if you’re a launch product, which means your product hasn’t hit the market yet so big pharma peeps have no clue what will make doctors prescribe your product…so we do messages which we test in little rooms and watch how docs react.

[Messaging - Testing statements in promotional materials for effectiveness and how well they resonate with the audience.]

And messages vary like this, “4 out of 5 patients did not have bleeding colons with Product X” or “Not many patients had bleeding colons with Product X” Do you like us showing the numbers, doctor? Or do you like us hiding them with fancy language? Do you like this data in a pie chart? In big arrows, doctor?” SUPER COOL! So that’s testing…

[Referencing - Claims about a drug must be backed up by a study that proves it to be true, at least in that particular instance. We can't make unsubstantiated claims.]

Then we have to reference everything. What does that mean? Well, here’s the big difference between consumer writers and us. A consumer writer can write,  “These cookies are da bomb! You will never eat another polyunsaturated sugary goodie like this in your life” and he/she is done. DONE. Go out, play ball, have a drink, see movie, do a goat, yay.

Now…if a pharma writer was to say, “PRODUCT X IS DA BOMB! PRODUCT X WILL EFFECTIVELY CURE YOUR HEAD LICE LIVER TUMOR CONJUNCTIVITIS”…

[Med/Legal people, for those not in the industry, are like the Jedi Conclave. They are the guardians, so to speak, of all our materials. They have to make sure whatever they’re looking to produce is medically sound (backed by studies) and won’t get them into trouble with the government. They tend to err on the side of being overly cautious because getting a warning letter from the FDA sucks.]

Well, that’s a weee bit different, kiddies…because we have to deal with the MED LEGAL people. Med/legal people stare at our pieces and say, “WHERE IS THE REFERENCE FOR THIS?” What, pray tell, is a reference? Why, it’s usually an article some doctor wrote about how Product X did whatever we like to say it did. Get the picture?

*****

That concludes part 1. There is a whole lot more where that came from. And perhaps I will censor further editions less. In my time as a pharma copywriter, I’ve seen that there aren’t many resources online that explain what life is really like and what our day-to-day work hours are spent doing. I hope that through these interviews (with more than just Pharmboy) I can offer some insider perspective. What Pharmboy feels or says does not hold true for everyone. I’ve been talking to another copywriter who honestly loves what he does and feels none of the angst Pharmboy does.

However, it’s important to provide perspective from all angles and that’s why it’s so important to keep things balanced. So stay tuned as NBA brings you more original content.