• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 17, 2014

Social media is an especially tricky environment for a high-regulated industry like pharmaceutical. At the same time, social networks and online communities have become important information sources for consumers and patients dealing with serious medical conditions.

Speaking on a panel at MediaPosts Marketing: health conference Monday, David Kopp, EVP/ GM of Healthline, which operates a network of health sites and provides online marketing, said the company hasn’t run into a lot of FDA issues in social media because it runs communities on sites like Facebook in a safe and moderated way. “We don’t push pharma into the conversation,” he said.

Kopp added that Healthline has a community of 20,000 members diagnosed with MS, that represent the most active group of patients, passing along information to others on Facebook. Because the company is acting as a publisher and content provider, he hasn’t see any regulatory problems with the role it plays between patients and pharma brands. 

Then again, the FDA is only starting to offer guidance on how Big Pharma should should approach social media communications, so it’s far from a settled area.