Over the weekend I caught up with Dan Palestrant, the CEO of Sermo–still the largest US based physician online community. Sermo opted not to raise new VC recently (unlike say Phreesia and ZocDoc) and actually reduced headcount in early 2009. Meanwhile during 2009 Daniel got his 15 minutes of fame debating the likes of Howard Dean on cable news and the site became a haven for lots of (grumpy) political talk, But while that may have captured the headlines, Sermo has done a major technology upgrade and redesigned both its user and its client interface. That re-design went live last week and Daniel spoke to me about what they did, what the discussion on the site is about (think clinical and business, less politics than last year), which clients they’re working with (think big Pharma) and how they’re doing financially and business-wise (better than you might have heard).
Here’s the apprx.10 minunte interview: Dan Palestrant
I found it stupid. With MDs supporting each other in bad practices. It was not ethical based and its money Pharm based now so its the same ol boys system. Dan was idealistic then he had to survive and he sold out to money and did not set up ethics as the foundation of the community. With the Pharm money it will survive and be corrupted. Same old story.