A Pharma index is essentially a database or a collection of pharmaceutical companies - and they are developing in new ways which may pose some interesting questions for companies whose operations must incoporate pharmacovigilance services. These directories categorise by parameters such as different countries or different areas of the pharmaceutical industry. The categorisation is commonly based on the type of results which will be searchable. On the whole, a Pharma list will be an all-encompassing directory of pharmaceutical operations.

Commonly, the entries will be ordered alphabetically and contain the company details, their site links, address and other contact information. While certain directories contain a catalogue of global pharmaceutical companies, there are many simply containing Pharma info for a particular country. You will find the Net platform is a superb source of such online all-inclusive databases or business directories listing firms that are operational within Pharma products production.

In an interesting new marketing development, recently two very large, very well known firms decided to launch their own pages on social networking site Biotech Twitter within weeks of each other. Nova Nordisk and Pfizer appeared to value Twitter for disseminating information on new products, new drug treatments, and building on their customer relations. Previous, many pharmaceutical firms had not used social media at the forefront of any campaigns, which may be influenced by a lack of fiscal measurement available to track how successful this type of publicity really is. Pharmaceutical companies were also notable by absence from blogs, presumably due to legal and regulatory issues. As previously noted, companies marketing pharmaceutical products are going to automatically need to provide for pharmacovigilance services somewhere within their budgets to ensure they are always compliant with a veritable raft of legislation. Nonetheless, the adoption of Twitter by these two pharma giants may indicate a new willingness to engage with social media within the industry as a whole. Drug companies are beginning to explore the possibilities of blogs and online notice boards using external companies to create the relevant online presence, whilst staying one step removed.

The web platform works so well as a resource for comprehensive databases or business directories of pharma companies. One end user who benefits is the consumer, who can literally browse online catalogues placed by various sundry producers within the Pharma industry. Typically, a product catalogue will list names and details of exporters, importers and wholesalers.

However, the nature of pharma products is the chief purchases are going to be those who buy in bulk quantities - drug store owners, labs and sales delegates. Many directories are keen to promote the fact they only enrol companies which sell products at market costs.