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STEPh, Inc. |
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July 8, 2013 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Medical Communications Company, STEPh, Inc. is providing Manuscripts and Technical Documents on Pharmaceutical Products as well as Competitive Intelligence making Continuous Updated Reports on Drugs in Development available on their Website |
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Jay H. Bauman, PharmD
President http://www.stephreports.com/ Scientific and Technical Evaluation of Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (STEPh, Inc.), was formed in 2005 by a group of pharmaceutical industry veterans with extensive experience within Medical Affairs and Commercial Operations in large pharmaceutical companies and private practice. STEPh Inc., is a medical communications company that specializes in the provision of Competitive Intelligence reports (referred to as STEPh REPORTS) and an array of medical writing services such as manuscripts for publication, product monographs, and medical information standard response letters. |
Communications
STEPh, Inc. Raleigh, NC 27614 800-280-7015
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – July 8, 2013
Dr. Bauman: STEPh was formed in 2005 by a few other people and myself who all came from the pharmaceutical industry. We all had about twenty years of experience in medical affairs departments. Currently what we do is provide a medical communications service where we write manuscripts, abstracts, put together posters, and create other technical documents such as product monographs. We provide a medical information service where we write standard response letters to questions on pharmaceutical company products, especially in response to new product launches. When a physician or a healthcare provider has a question about a particular marketed or investigational product they contact the company and the company either talks to them over the phone or corresponds through the mail and sends out a response. We write the responses based on the appropriate information that is supplied to us. We have a competitive intelligence service and the main component of that would be reports on drugs in development across selected therapeutic areas. While there are many information companies that provide this type of service, the majority of reports that are sold are usually available in hardcopy form. So by the time you purchase a report on what is in development for Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis you may get a 200 or 300-page hardcopy report that was probably written a few months prior. It goes out of date quickly as new information comes out in the development process. We make available continuously updated reports on drugs in development across a few selected therapeutic areas and that is the component that is on our website.
CEOCFO: How does the business play out between the two segments and where do you see the most growth? Dr. Bauman: Initially it was in medical communications in manuscripts and technical documents that were a large component of our business. Right now we are trying to move more to the competitive intelligence component, which consists of large reports of digested information on investigational agents across selected therapeutic areas. The information in these reports is largely in the public domain; we do not put anything that we find that would be of a confidential nature that a company would not want out in the public domain. We analyze the information and it is highly referenced with a lot of links that one can click on and go right to the source documents. It is not only a source document of all the drugs in development but also includes individual drug monographs, and many tables such as projected/anticipated approval dates, drugs recently dropped from development, agents available for licensing, and reviews of key issues relevant to the selected therapeutic area. There are also Excel spreadsheets so you can sort information by mechanism of action, potential year of development approval and company. You can manipulate the information a lot of different ways. Also on the website there is daily news in the therapeutic areas of interest and archived news as well as a Hot Topics section, which would be a two or three-page summary of a key issue in that particular therapeutic area that one might be interested in. There are many interesting twists to the information we are trying to make available to people.
CEOCFO: There are a number of sites that have information about various studies and news. Would you tell us about the depth that you are offering because I am suspecting that is one of the main differences? Dr. Bauman: There are a few. One is we try to include information that is not in other reports, for example, compounds that have recently dropped out of development, projected approval dates, and relevant themes particular to that therapeutic area. There is always information on compounds available for licensing so you can go and get a quick listing of what compounds companies are making available to larger companies. There are many groupings of digested information that are likely not in the routine report. We are a very small company and we are very accessible so when you deal with us you know who you are going to be dealing with. Many large companies have many layers to deal with such as an account manager and then they pass the information down to someone else so you never really know who you are dealing with at a particular company. We provide customization and we are very oriented to the end user. What is unique is that we sat in the seats of the people who are going to be purchasing the information so we understand what the end user really wants so we can respond fairly quickly to one’s needs. If there are things that people want specifically done that might be just for them then we are able to customize things for clients as well. Some other services to complement the reports would include a meetings coverage service. If somebody is interested in a particular meeting and they do not have the funds to send two or three people to the meeting and if they have a ton of questions they would like answered, we are able to go to the meeting and talk with investigators or talk with the people that are displaying posters at the meeting or giving presentations and provide a customized report back to the client. I worked at a top tier pharmaceutical company and also at a very large biotech company. We have done a ton of work with large companies and have also done competitive intelligence work for one of the largest philanthropic organizations that included assessments on technologies in a particular therapeutic area. We will do very small projects and very large projects. If there are things that we do not feel we are capable and comfortable doing or cannot be done, we will tell the client that this is something that we do not think your money is going to be well-spent trying to assess.
CEOCFO: On the areas that you are covering routinely, there seems to be conferences every day. What is the key to figuring out what you should be paying attention to and what might be maybe on a secondary level? Dr. Bauman: That is a great question. I have done many projects where clients have said, “I had somebody else do this but they did not do a very good job and can you fix this”. The reason the initial company did not do a very good job is they did not have an understanding of what it was that they were writing on or researching on. Since we have been in the industry and we are limiting ourselves at the current time to select areas that we are following, and I have been doing this for over thirty years, you kind of develop an appreciation over time for what is important and what is not. It is really an art to being able to sift through a lot of information and distill it down to what is important and what is not. Sometimes you might miss something because it could be a new technology or a new theory you never heard of before and you may not pay attention to it and a year later you see five or ten new things come out on it. It then becomes an issue that needs to be followed. I think the key is not just anybody can do this, you need experience and you have to be able to have appreciation for the art and science of actually how to do this particular function.
CEOCFO: Is there awareness among the people to whom this could be important? Dr. Bauman: We are an extremely small company and it is very difficult to compete with some of the very large companies because established pharmaceutical companies that have been dealing with these very large mega medical communications or information companies know who those companies are and they repeatedly go back to them. They are reluctant to change and have large budgets so they do not mind paying a lot of money. The thing about budgets, which kind of is an interesting concept if you have not been inside a pharmaceutical company, is that in the old days you were given a budget and if you did not spend your budget, you lost your money for the next year. People did not mind spending a ton of money because they knew that is the only way they were going to get an equal amount or more for the following year. We do not charge at the same rate that the large companies charge because obviously our overhead is not as great. Being small we do not have a large advertising budget but it is people that we have worked with in the industry that know who we are. I have been publishing for thirty years and have been speaking for twenty-five years at various society meetings. I started the medical communications sub-group within the Drug Information Association back in 1988-1989. Many people know who I am and once people use the service and they like what we do, they will come back to us to do more projects. If they use the service and they do not like it then obviously they are not going to call you back. Right now we have a small list of clients who come back to us. One thing we are trying to do now is issue some press releases. We have written several abstracts that are pending acceptance for some of the neurology meetings including a big meeting coming up in Europe for multiple sclerosis. If that particular abstract is accepted there are over 7000 people that attend that meeting, so there would be a large crowd that will walk by the poster and that would be an opportunity to get in front of people. There is also cold-calling in the therapeutic areas such as Alzheimer’s disease and there are a hundred companies that have an interest there. It is difficult and very expensive to exhibit at meetings so we have to resort to innovative ways of getting in front of people.
CEOCFO: Are people buying individual reports when they are buying the standard or on a prescription basis? Dr. Bauman: The website is available on a subscription basis, so if you were interested in a therapeutic area that we had reports on, then you would subscribe to that therapeutic area within the website and that would allow you access to all the information within that therapeutic area. If you like the presentation of information in an area, and this is what happened initially, if you buy into one area and you like what you see then you are more likely to subscribe to another area. Each area you subscribe to would be discounted off the first one and there would be a maximum fee that would entitle you to the entire website at a greatly discounted price. We are offering sponsorships where companies can have their name on the front page of the home page with a specific link to their own space within the website. So if it is a small company that has a compound that they are developing that is in Phase I or II, this would be a way that anybody who clicks on the website can see that company name on the front page and can click on that link, which would direct them to information about the company or that particular agent. It would give them more visibility and they would have access to the information in that therapeutic area and the sponsorship would be at a reduced rate. Sponsorships are ideal for a smaller company that is looking for a potential licensing partner.
CEOCFO: Why should the business and investment community pay attention to STEPh?
Dr.
Bauman: I
think it is because the people that are putting together the information are
not average people. We pride ourselves on being experts in knowing what
other folks want and need. Many times people think they know what they need
but they really do not know. We are able to help people focus in on what is
important and cut through a lot of the information that they really do not
need. It is a very personalized service. I give people my cell phone number
so if they have anything they need done they can contact me whenever the
need arises. We do not nickel and dime people. We do not mind going out of
our way and doing more for less. We like to do a good job. For manuscripts
we have 100% acceptance rate in peer review journals. We do quality work and
people like that and they come back. |
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“We make available continuously updated reports on drugs in development across a few selected therapeutic areas and that is the component that is on our website.”- Jay H. Bauman, PharmD |
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