Blog leads to an interactive-media business service

It’s not quite the case of an amateur blogger creating a business and a career—but it is a case of how online interactions can lead to business opportunities for both service agencies and their pharma industry clients. Zemoga, a New York interactive agency that does considerable pharma work, has partnered on occasion with Palio (Saratoga Springs, NY; also a subsidiary of inVentiv Health) on Web-based projects. Along the way, both collaborated informally on a blog, Pixels & Pills (www.pixelsandpills.com). Now, based on the following they’ve developed on that site, they’re launching a digital consulting service with the same name.

“We pride ourselves on being at the bleeding edge of technology on the Web,” says DJ Edgerton, president of Zemoga. “Pixels & Pills is well positioned to lead pharmaceutical companies into digital. We're already developing Augmented Reality, enhanced virtual environments, and filing patents for social media tools - we're all about digital.”

Guy Mastrion, creative director at Palio, says that Palio has its own digital expertise, but has routinely called in Zemoga to assist on various projects (the Pixels and Pills venture already has a project going with Novo Nordisk). “Online communications is a field that is moving very fast right now,” he says. “This arrangement will give us the flexibility to meet evolving customer needs.”

Another new-media aspect of the venture is that it won’t have dedicated staff, at least for the near term. Staff from Palio or Zemoga will join into Pixels and Pills projects, even while each of the two partners manage their own projects with pharma clients.

However the company generates work and revenue, Edgerton is certain that business is going to grow for interactive media for life sciences. “The FDA DDMAC hearings last fall [Pharmaceutical Commerce, Nov/Dec, p. 5] showed both the difficulties FDA is having with online media, and the variety of solutions that industry can come up with to meet them,” he says. “There’s a tremendous level of activity in this field.”