Big pharma planning digital marketing push this year?

In terms of digital marketing, pharmaceutical companies have been historically inactive compared to companies in other industries. One of the reason is that the industry has unique strict regulations on promotion so that pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to adopt digital - especially web 2.0 - for fear of a poor risk/benefit ratio and a lack of documented success with these tools. However, according to a new survey from MarketBridge and Matt Kapko's iMedia news , the pharmaceutical industry is preparing to make a big push in the digital marketing space in 2009. At least 72 percent of all respondents said they would be investing more in 2009. Although there remain concerns about regulations, "digital" certainly attracts more and more interests among pharma companies.