Angry Birds They Ain't: Sanofi, Novartis Dip Toes Into Apps for Android

Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) and Novartis (NVS) have both released apps for Android, which isn't news except that Big Pharma is perennially two years behind the curve in digital marketing and these are the first two drug apps for Google (GOOG)'s mobile device platform.

Remember, this is an industry that still uses spam and has yet to master Facebook. The FDA doesn't have any rules for digital marketing, yet it continues to randomly discipline companies that try to use it. The FDA has taken more than a year to deliver long-promised rules for drug companies who want to promote drugs via web 2.0. As such, these new apps will be scrutinized intensely within the business and the FDA.

Sanofi and Novartis have released three apps between them, two for consumers and one for doctors. Here's the lowdown:

GoMeals by Sanofi
Sanofi has a massive diabetes franchise with its drug Lantus, so unsurprisingly its Android app is a menu planner for diabetics. Users can pick restaurants and browse through their menus. The app then displays the nutritional value in carbohydrates, proteins, fats and total calories for each menu item, and adds it all up into a daily "plate," so diabetics can monitor their food intake. It does the same for individual ingredients for meals at home. Users must, presumably, assume that all the values are estimates. The app seems to be genuinely useful, and would be even more so if it offered a reservations function via OpenTable (you still have to call to book a table). Users can save various menu combos as favorites.

Wheresflu by Novartis
It's a good thing this app is free, because it's terrible. You tap in your zipcode and it tells you how affected by flu your neighborhood is. It then lists the top five most affected areas (Fort Wayne, Ind., was Ground Zero for flu today, it seems.) That's all it does. There's nothing fun (like a throbbing, interactive "heat" map of flu infections nationwide) and nothing useful (like maps of nearby pharmacies for the product Novartis is advertising with this app, TheraFlu). It does offer a $2 coupon. Once you've tapped in your zip code, you've pretty much perused all the data Wheresflu has to offer. The entire user experience is over within 30 seconds -- a disaster for a successful app. Worse, the data isn't even accurate. It ranked Jersey City, N.J., as "moderate" for flu with 25-50% of the population affected. That struck me as a fairly high proportion for "moderate," so I tapped on the "About the Data" tab to see how Novartis gathered the info. It's from the SDI FAN database, which, as Wheresflu describes it, ranks geographic flu activity like this:

• Low: 0-5% population affected
• Moderate: 5-10%
• High: 10-15%
• Very High: >15%

Oncology Medical Information by Novartis
The app requires all your info -- name, email, address, phone number etc -- right down to a physician's license number, and as I'm not a doctor I am not in a position to say whether it's any good. The main purpose of the app is:

Allows health care professionals, such as oncologists and hematologists, to view and download the latest standard response documents to many medical inquiries.

Related:

• Why the FDA Is to Blame for Drug Company Spam
• Novartis Shoulda Known the FDA Would Ban Its Facebook Widget
• FDA's Web 2.0 Hearing Recalls Its Unintentionally Hilarious Panel From 1996: "What Is the Internet?"
• Drugs on Twitter: Big Pharma Lobbies for New Rules in Social Media