What is this about? My manager said other reps are calling us to find out our secrets. Is that legal?
lots of small firms that identify as conducting Pharma/BioPharma competitive intelligence. Yet no individual is ever up front with conducting it. Every Pharma Bio Pharma company has someone on the inside that oversees the hiring of the firms that conduct the research, and they never speak about how the primary research is gathered. Seems a whole lot of interviews are conducted, and yet no one knows they were interviewed. Maybe there should be CP threads for all these research firms known to conduct CI within this industry. Maybe those that have done CI in the past should feel comfortable enough to speak up about what goes on in the hush hush world of pharma CI. Every piece of dirty laundry about big pharma is aired on CP. Only fair to shed a little light on this self proclaimed "grey area"
OP asked, is it legal? question should be worded more specifically. Is Pharma CI as in the concept and business of it legal? yes. Are there ethical guidelines that should be followed? yes. Like most industry have a small few hijacked some aspects of Pharma CI and do they completely bend the rules for their own gain? you know it.
there is a thread on this topic on the 'healthcare consultants' board. Expanding niche industry siphoning off of pharma, should it continue to have luxury of flying so low under the radar? On pharma/Bio-Pharma side of things there are regulations, and their are attempts to make sure all follow the regulations. Who is keeping an eye on the tactics of this growing group of risk takers?
Exactly. Easy to claim to be sincere on an anonymous site. They see this as a ripe source to clarify the bits and pieces they find in secondary research. Weather we realize it or not intellectual property is just that. Property of ours that should not be un-ethically taken for someone-elses profit. Some call call it a form of trolling. It's phishing and those who do it, suck.
It is a form of phishing. It completely sucks. Management in the firms that do it, like to keep their underlings naive to the fact that the techniques they use to conduct in their research, are completely un-ethical and carry with them significant risk. The sneaky stuff they pull on these boards is only the tip of how far they push their comfy "grey area"
