Roberta's Big BLOG

Hologic to Buy Cytyc for $6.2 Billion A New Kid on the Ob/Gyn Block!

2007-05-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

Move over Gynecare!
GE watch your back.

There's a new player in the women's health ob/gyn space and they are definitely kicking butt and taking names!
It had become obvious in the past several years that Cytyc had fixed its sights on the women's health market not just the diagnostic end of it either. Last month they snapped up Adeza. But with the merger/acquisition today of Hologic and Cytyc the J&J, Ethicon, Gynecare, franchise and GE as the "Big Kids" on the Women's Health medical device block is definitely being challenged.

Cytyc has been acquiring companies at a fast clip over the past 4 years, but I don't know anyone who saw this one coming. (Maybe I just don't know the right people!)

What will it mean for the industry and profession? Overall it portends well I think. In the past several years there has been a lot of inertia in the marketplace about being a women's health company. Several big pharmas left the space or merged...it just seemed like no one was interested in the women's health market and it was hitting a glass ceiling with dollars going to chase cardiology, dermatology, and diabetes. All "chick" diseases too buy not classified as women's health by most players. That however seems to be shifting too.
Women's Health is sexy once again (pun intended) and companies are trying to put together mega franchises. It should make for some great competitive action in the space. Certainly some excellentmoney to be made betting on the right ponies, and who better to know which ones they are then the Ob/Gyn's themselves.

It is going to put a lot of squeeze on the little companies but thats the game. It will IMHO not stop here. There are a lot of things going on in the hysterectomy and alternative space that bears watching. Too many companies with too similar products riper for a round-up. Robotics and non invasives coming into the field.

Cosmetic gynecology is hot too, as is all things related to us aging baby boomer girls with lots of disposable income and a desire to spend it on quality of life if we are indeed to live so long. As Cindy Lauper sang, "Girls Just Want To Have Fun". Which brings me to the next big thing...Female Sexual Dysfunction...everyone is working on it, thinking about it, has plans...that could be the next Holy Grail for Ob/Gyn if it can be done which causes much debate. Stay tuned.

We all used to think the medical device industry was represented by the mighty bastion of Gynecare right here in New Brunswick, NJ. ,coincidentally, where I chose to relocate OBGYN.net to 2 years ago.

But my old home state, my birthright, Massachusetts, is starting to look better all the time. Maybe its time to go North again, where the real action seems to be coalescing around Women's Health these days in the quaint towns an d suburbs of Boston. To "pak the ka in havad yad' once again. I am always so happy to visit. I went West to find my dreams fifteen years ago, but they seem to be bringing me right back to my own back yad (sic), just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Anyone care to take some guesses on who will be the next big acquisition by this Hologic/Cytyc powerhouse?
Comments welcome!

Best,
Roberta

Marketing and Education Online for Ob/Gyn Industry Professionals or Pushing String Uphill 101

2007-05-21T11:30:00.001-07:00

Wow!
I'm Impressed.
After 11 years of trying to get companies to use the Internet and OBGYN.net for marketing, advertising and education 2007 seems to be the breakthrough year! Things are picking up all over online and ad spends are switching from vertical magazines to online campaigns and initiatives in droves.

Apparently online medical advertising alone is projected to be a 13 billion dollar industry by 2008. I remember back in 1996 when it was a no dollar industry! I remember hearing the heads of big marketing departments of major pharmaceutical companies and bio tech companies saying things like, "I think the Internet might just be a fad", or "Doctors don't use the Internet, especially not Ob/Gyns."

It seemed funny to me now that Ob/Gyn's seemed to be viewed as the late adopters on the Internet, barely possessing upposable thumbs, let alone the savvy to utilize online communications, when I knew through our early gambits at OBGYN.net that nothing could be further from the truth. NVOG was one of the first medical websites in the world to have a fully functional interactive website with a members only component, http://www.nvog.nl/ leave it to the Dutch! It was the brain child of Dr Hans van der Slikke and some other pioneering doctors using a great programmer who could work marvels...if they could keep him sober and off the sauce. They did long enough to get one hell of a website out of him!

The problem really back in those days was not that doctors or at least my specialty, Ob/Gyn , doctors, weren't using the Internet very much, it was that the sales and marketing people weren't using it practically at all yet. We marketing people are notoriously, myself included, bad at technology adoption. Some right brain left brain thing I guess. The doctors were using it, and using it well, long before the people who depend on them for changing the course of women's health care and making their companies a success ever caught on.

To this day I still run into the odd person in marketing or education for a company that sells to/through ob/gyns who will tell me they never heard of OBGYN.net. Now when I hear it I wonder..."if you make your livelihood off of communicating with ob/gyn's wouldn't you think you would ever, just for grins, put the search terms "obstetrics", "gynecology" or "obgyn" into Google?" One would assume they would...but don't! We come up tn the top 3 out of millions of possibilities but some of these marketing people still have never heard of OBGYN.net and proclaim it proudly. Too busy with lofty marketing plans one must presume. Go figure. In a million years they will be fuel oil like the dinosaurs they are. Now they are just being very foolish and making themselves and their companies look antiquated and out of touch to the very market they hope to influence.

Thankfully, now after over a decade, that type of encounter is rare and far between. It is no badge of honor to run marketing for a company that relies on a certain specific constituent group and never even bother to put the name of their specialty in Google and see what pops up. The newer younger PM's and marketing and advertising people cut their teeth online and it is part of how they think and move in the space. We are now experiencing the first generation of professionals that know no other way of communicating besides email and IM and online, taking the positions of authority in companies. The leaders are getting younger. In the not too distant future companies will be run by people who do not remember a time before the internet, much as I at 51 do not remember a time befor TV.

What does it mean for websites like OBGYN.net? Well it's good in a way, but it still is a market working out its kinks. Now that we can measure things more closely expectations tend to be too high. I guess it is a sad day to find out your multimillion dollar ad campaign is falling on deaf ears. It was better when you could throw ads in 3 of the vertical throw-aways and sleep at night assured that your message was seen, absorbed and checked in to the minds of the 38,000 US Ob/Gyn doctors you are charged to reach and influence. Not so good to find out that what you have been saying is either, ill crafted, unimportant, missunderstood or worst of all, no one cares. If the doctors are interested they log on to online information in droves. If they are not, they just don't...and you and you boss are going to have to know it and deal with it!

IMHO the two biggest components to a successful online campaign with ob/gyns, is extremely target email and advertising promotion, and having something educational THAT EFFECTS THEM AND THEIR PRACTICES AND PATIENTS to share with them. If your "agency" made a creative and it is not getting clicked on...get new creative...or a new message...or a new agency. Don't blame the doctors and think they don't use the Internet, or blame the messenger (in this case OBGYN.net) for the failure to connect. Do an online focus group or something to find out why the campaign is falling on its face with Ob/Gyns. Maybe you want them and need them more than they need you. In the world of all the problems they have to deal with for their patients, maybe your problem seems less than top of mind important.

They get hit with a lot of infomation. Make sure yours rings true and important to them. Find the point of connection, on their terms. Not your's or some agency's.

So, that's it for my opinion today. The market is always right. If they don't see value in your offering it is your fault, not theirs. And one more side note...the people that spent the last ten years crafting print campaigns don't necessarily know what works online. Whatever your medical specialty, Ob/Gyn, Cardiology, podiatry...don't call "Waxcapplet, Gooseliver, Vendetta & Prang" because they are "the biggest name in the industry"...put the name of your medical specialty in Google...find out who comes up in the top 5 or ten returns, then call them and find out what they are doing riggt, and how your company can leverage of that positioning.

Roberta

Death of RODOLPHE MAHEUX, MD World Pioneer in Endometriosis

2007-05-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

The shocking news of the untimely death of Dr. RODOLPHE MAHEUX of Quebec, the co-founder of the World Endometriosis Society has by now circulated in most academic circles. Everyone in Endometriosis knows all that he did for the field so I will not go on about it here as it is well published on the Internet at other places.

I will tell you me RM story. I remember a lunch years ago when OBGYN.net donated the first WES website and we met with him at ISGE in Montreal, with Lucy Fellichisimo, who was then managing and helped start the WES. He took myself and Bruce out to a very special restaurant in Montreal for the strawberries and pepper. He said, "I know it sounds terrible but it is a perfect combination!", and it was. Much like him, sweet, but also fiery and surprising.

He had driven over in a recent model, white Mercedes convertible. He had bought it for peanuts from the husband of a very wealthy infertility patient who had just delivered her second baby because of his care. It was by way of a thank you that the car was sold at such a ridiculous price. Rudolphe was enjoying it immensely that day. Both the car and the story behind it. He enjoyed life. He enjoyed the story of how it unfolded just as much, from what I could tell.

Fifty-five is too young to die. Even in your sleep from what was probably a brain aneurysm. Better to die while living then live while dying, they say. Especially someone with his energy and verve for life. But very sad news for the rest of us.

The likes of Rodolophe Maheux will not come our way again.

Roberta

Back From ACOG

2007-05-18T02:52:00.000-07:00

Hi OBGYN.net'ers,

Just back from ACOG and ready for the spring Ob/Gyn meeting cycle to break. As fun as it is to travel and see all the old friends, it gets pretty exhausting! Looking forward to a lazy summer with some non-business related travel thrown in that includes drinks involving umbrellas.

This year at ACOG we all noticed the huge amount of aesthetic and cosmetogynecology companies exhibiting at the meeting. This has been true at AAGL and other meetings recently and seems to be a real trend in the industry that bears watching. Although there are a lot of hurdles to overcome in shifting to this business model, it is lucrative, and the patients certainly seem to want it. Time will tell.

The anti-abortion demonstrators were out as usual, but they did not seem to have the numbers or vigor of the groups in years gone by. Maybe just an artifact of the laid back San Diego weather and lifestyle. I remember them being a lot more organized and vocal last year in Washington DC.

Word in the exhibit hall was that attendance was down from 3,800 in 2006 to 3,400 in 2007. This has been an ongoing downward spiral over the last five years with a lot of meeting attendance seeming to be centered these days on sub-specialty meetings. Everything just seemed smaller, attendance, booth sizes, the excitement level, the celebrity guests, the number of social gatherings...However, Dr Ed Zabrek and Mark Graves put on what I understand was an excellent day of education on all the choices out there for electronic medical records. Most of the doctors I spoke to thought the clinical presentations were very good and well organized.

There were so many new companies, and so many old companies either out of the market, acquired or missing in action that it hardly seemed like the same meeting of ten years ago when it filled two full exhibit halls in Las Vegas. I guess "Elvis" has left the building.

Best,
Roberta Speyer
OBGYN.net President