Over on the pharma-mkting list serv there’s been some fun with those slighly misspelt words that make more sense than the original — apparently this started in the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational.  Well the pharma marketing folks got into it and I saved them all meaning to compile  them on a rainy day.  John Mack has published these already over on his Pharma Marketing Blog but as we don’t share too many readers I thought some of you might like to see them. (I’ve also had them cluttering up my in-tray for a while and I’m up late uncluttering it! (Author is listed after definition).

Adhorence – deep hatred of advertising (John Mack)

Relationslip Marketing:  Establishing an initial connection with a consumer and then never doing anything meaningful with it.

Derail Aid:  A tool to confuse physicians (both David Reim)

DTC advertising: Direct to courthouse (James Gardner)

Salety Study: Which proves that the drug is worth selling, whether safe or not.

Generich Companies: Which make plenty of $ with somebody else’s innovations.

Phate III: Which concludes that the drug can be sold, the fate of a certain % of the target population being left to a higher power. (all Sanjay Virmani)

Charmaceutical:  An SSRI taken by someone who thinks they have a genuine diagnosis, but in reality are simply unpleasant.

Byotech:  A small, specialty pharmaceutical company whose stock rises paradoxically whenever they announce failed clinical trials.

Contrasindication:  A DTC ad deliberately designed to generate controversy, so as to get aired on cable news 10 times for every paid slot. (all Paul McNiven)

DTP-Direct to Plaintiff:  The art and science of creating plaintiffs with puffery enticing them to try dangereous drugs they would be better off without. (Terry Nugent)

Antibositics: Therapies undertaken to antagonise bosses’ criticism. (Kamran Shamsi)

Adverstising: The fine art of promoting adverse reactions through the use of realistic images of afflicted patients to target audiences consisting of physicians and consumers in a repulsive, yet memorable fashion. (Mario Nacinovich)

CEA: A term used to describe a ranking officer whose public utterances remind one of a pejorative or disdainful reference to a bodily part normally used to express intense disagreement with another’s expressed opinion. (Harry Sweeney)

Complieance — what patients tell their doctors about whether they are taking their pills (Me)

Pharmochondria: a morbid condition characterised by depressed spirits
and fancies of ill health induced by pharmaceutical "awareness"
campigns and advertising (Michael Lascelles)

and my favorite

Pharmasuitickle:- An overall pleasant tingling a personal trial attorney gets when contacted by a former Vioxx patient. (Jim Weidert)

And finally from Bob Iles (?), these are not misspellings but "daffynitions" from his Dictionary of Pharmaceutical Research.

Conclusions — What you designed your study to prove.

Informed consent — A document lawyers, doctors and administrators took weeks to write and revise but which a 100-IQ patient is expected to read, understand and sign within minutes before getting the drug, needle, knife and/or shaft.

Insight — The innate ability I have to see the clinical importance of my data. Called bias in those who disagree with me.

Null hypothesis — Conclusion you do not want to prove but which you strive mightily to reach. Makes as much sense as anything else in statistics.   

Strategy — The name you give after the fact to any series of random events that ended in your favor.

Statistics — [From Sanskrit "sadistics," meaning confounding verbiage] A means of getting people to argue about numbers instead of whether the test drug worked.