Professional racing driver Charlie Kimball almost every track in 1300 to his followers: the countdown to the big races, interviews and TV, tonight at Sonoma, Calif. It’s hard not crucial detail Kimball inspired the story: 25 years is one of the few professionals in the world are diagnosed with diabetes. In part because, according to Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant, has developed a campaign, in which regular Tweets Kimball took over two insulin society. “With Levemir FlexPen only me,” he tweeted last June, based on the syringe and insulin Novo Nordisk is available. Levemir appears on the front of the race is in Kimball, his car and his official page of Twitter, race with insulin divided. “This is a great way to connect with the community diabetes programs,” he says.

The campaign has become a rock star race with Kimball insulin in diabetes community. They also made him one of the most exciting few qualified pharmaceutical companies navigate emerging media space primarily non-social. Food and Drug Administration has strict guidelines, such drugs may appear in newspapers and magazines, and in 1997 published the rules on audiovisual media – in particular, that companies need basic information about known risks of loss of the drug disk. But no rules for social media. (See the 10 minutes of conversation, 2010.)

This month, the FDA guidelines, such as pharmaceuticals market, pharmaceutical companies, expects Ambien Viagra retailers like Twitter, Facebook and Google. For these companies is no small thing. Pew Research Center for Internet & American Life Project estimated that 61% of adult online health information. Analysts say online marketing company ever larger share of approximately $ 4000000000 pharmaceutical companies spend each year advertising their products. In the first half of companies in the amount of $ 5700000000 spent as much as Yahoo’s search ads increased by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a coalition of companies with online advertising in the U.S. “There are a lot of focus,” said Jeffrey K. “France, Assistant Attorney General Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers Association of America, the leading trade group in Washington.

Oddly enough, the pharmaceutical industry at the forefront of the movement of the FDA rules for social media edition. Businesses realize their sites and traditional advertising strategies are appropriate tools to promote products in a competitive market in which doctors, pharmacists and consumers about the drug trade aggressively on the blog. The companies are also aware that “if they are not fully in the social media conversation, get marginalized,” said John Mack, publisher of Pharma Marketing Blog, which attracts about 25,000 readers one months industry. Boost the credibility of companies to protect against rogue online stores that sell questionable products. Some blame it on practical problems, such as how to properly explain the risks of the drug release within a 140 – Tweet characters. Google ads or sponsored by the two lines of text? (See TIME covers health and medicine.)

Last year, the FDA has sent letters to 14 companies – including Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and “misleading” to be careful to promote the use of social media products in some cases, the effort of a letter demanding the December 2009 he went to Bayer. Mirena promoted, a drug the central nut site until February of last year. The campaign included a talk by a sister, Barbara Dan, who wrote the accounts as a place of his own “award-winning author and nationally recognized health expert.” Mirena said Dan consumers, “a method of contraception that allows for spontaneous intimacy.” The FDA said the script for “misleading” overstated “the evidence for the efficacy of Mirena” and no mention of the possibility that the drug during pregnancy, women can lose a child or be sterile and take. Bayer no longer has a social media campaign for Mirena. Sale In another case in November 2009 claimed federal a similar letter to his dark society Utah website products by preventing the H1N1 virus, in Meta “kill swine influenza virus” tags such as and “swine flu” – often all words of the FDA Consumer not googling confirmed the H1N1 virus as a drug ..

In the absence of formal rules are pharmaceutical companies in social media transfer room to enter. Therefore, Charlie Kimball case instructive. He began at the age of 16 races. Within a week in the fall of 2007, during a race in Britain, says Kimball, 25 pounds (11.4 kg) is lost. Doctors diagnose him with type 1 diabetes. “What is diabetes?” You ask. Kimball, who is based in Indianapolis was to Ann Peters, a physician from California, a consultant of Novo Nordisk. Kimball says he is the company to tell their story. In April 2009, is referred to signing an agreement