John Murray, Creator and Webmaster
My entire professional career centers around the regulation of advertising and promotion of prescription drug and biologic products. Since 1994 I have been employed, in one way or another, by a number of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Primarily, I have been responsible for the review and approval of advertising and promotion and drug labeling, providing strategic regulatory advice for product commercialization, as well as managing regulatory and compliance departments and components of company compliance programs.
Today, I am a self-employed consultant for regulatory and health care compliance issues. For transparency, my clients are all industry clients or companies or practices whose clients are industry clients. As an self-employed consultant, my goals are to have (first and foremost) a viable business. I’m a family man with a lot of mouths to feed. However, I believe that maintaining a viable practice requires that my services support (exclusively) sound, responsible, and legal practices of my clients. Nonetheless, one should read the content on this website with the knowledge that my writing comes from one who makes his living being paid by industry to help them comply with laws and regulations. I don’t believe there is such a state as being “bias-free” no matter what any cable news network tells you or whether you’re in government, the media, the public at large, in medicine or industry. Unfortunately for me, I’m no exception.
My friend Michael Misocky will also be participating. Read about Mike below.
Michael Misocky, Co-Founder and Contributor
This website idea was originally conceived over a phone call (hands-free of course) between John and myself, while I was traveling down Route 202 near Flemington, NJ. Admittedly, although I am a “contributor” in theory, John has basically done everything to get the site up and running (including an amazing job setting up the website and adding virtually all of the content). It is my hope (time permitting) that we both can be active contributors to the site in the months to come as this issue is one that is near and dear to my heart and mind.
My background is largely similar to John’s in terms of my career devotion to maintaining the integrity and compliance of marketing and promotion activities by the pharmaceutical industry. My career in this arena began with a pharmacy degree and then a law degree was added for good measure. My first job in the industry was not in the industry at all but at the place where the rubber truly meets the road, at the FDA, in the Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC). From there, I made stops in NJ (at BMS), traveled to Chicago (Abbott Labs), and returned to the Garden State once again (ImClone Systems) all the while taking on positions with greater variety and increasing responsibility. Currently, I maintain a very busy schedule as a regulatory and legal compliance consultant for the pharmaceutical industry with a growing number of clients and ever-shrinking availability.
It is my hope that this site will continue to grow and become a hub for “scientific exchange” and debate regarding the dissemination of reprints and allow readers to better understand these challenging issues. It is my thumbnail view that the permissions granted in the guidance document are in fact privileges for those who seek relatively unfettered scientific exchange of credible medical literature but this should not be mistaken for an unabated right to do that which is amoral. With this said, let me be clear that I am one of the strongest proponents of the First Amendment but as a legal scholar, I also realize that our institution of government may permit certain restrictions on these rights so that they are not abused or misused.