And Now Let’s Go To The Biopharma CEO With Breaking News by Mike Huckman
Harvard Business Review has a new blog post about the lack of CEOs on Twitter. And I totally agree with one of its main points:
“…CEOs should be where people are watching, reading, chatting and listening. CEOs should set the pace and embrace connectivity with customers, communities, advocates, new talent and others online.”
However, the blog leaves out one of Harvard’s neighbors and most prolific tweeting CEOs, Richard Pops of the small biopharma company Alkermes. Granted, he’s not in the same league as some of the big-time CEOs the article singles out like former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Zappos’ Tony Hsieh or Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi, but he’s a well-known player, at least, in the New England biotech cluster.
And last night Pops went where no other biopharma CEO has gone before and may never go. Shortly after his company pushed out the press release on FDA approval of Vivitrol, its once-a-month shot in the butt for opioid addiction, he tweeted the news himself:
It’s not only significant, I think, that Pops tweets his company’s news and point of view, but in this case, it’s significant that he tweeted about the FDA approval before any of my former competitive colleagues did. If I were still on the other side, I’m not sure how I would’ve felt about getting scooped by a CEO I was assigned to cover, but from my new view on the dark side, I kinda like it. I also like Pops’ tweet tone. I mean, he didn’t scream (and I’m certain the lawyers wouldn’t have let him,) “Woohoo! FDA says ‘YES’ to Alkermes’ Vivitrol for opioid addiction!!!” Note that he also was careful to not even tweet a link to the actual press release. The “one to go” reference, by the way, refers to the scheduled FDA approval decision on October 22nd for another drug.
HBR should have included Pops in its blog. Maybe it left him out because he went to the Harvard of the West, which I’m still sore about for having beaten the Trojans last Saturday night in a barnburning squeaker.
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great news keep up the good work in Mass.