Pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research has released an ePharma Physician study. According to the study, physicians report that they will shift a significant amount of time currently devoted to offline professional sources to their online counterparts in the coming years.
The study focuses on physician usage and opinions of online pharmaceutical and biotech information and feature data on a broad spectrum of life sciences companies including Merck, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Biogen, Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo, Sepracor, and Eisai. The survey found that physicians desire to receive the majority of their pharmaceutical and device product information through online and other electronic sources. Currently, physicians conduct 41 percent of their pharmaceutical research online. This is expected to increase to over 50 percent in the near future.
Online journals and virtual conferences are two other professional resources that should see spikes in physician traffic in the coming years, says the study. It was found that physicians expect to shift time spent with print journals and live conferences to those online counterparts.
The market for online clinical resources has been growing steadily over the past five years, and some companies are taking notice by expanding their interactive offerings for physicians. Medical publisher Elsevier launched WiserWiki in 2008 for physicians to collaboratively contribute and update clinical information. Physicians can expect to see more of these innovative tools launch in the near future.
