Last night at 3TVancouver David Jones hinted at a social media site from the pharma industry would launch today. I poked him this morning for the link and he sent out the link to this—Bayer Xarelto: Online Media Centre.

Before social media purists start going bonkers about any lack of features, remember the pharma industry in the US and Canada (world-wide actually) is so heavily regulated and restricted that doing much more that this is extremely risky.

How risky? In Canada a violation of the drug marketing rules is a criminal offence, yes like behind bars and orange jumpsuit.

What Bayer has done is right on the money. Well for pharma. David and H&K guided them to make the resources that typically were obtuse to say the least available, searchable, and shareable.

Huh? Why would I want to share info on venous blood clots?

Well I don’t. However health bloggers would. Journalists would. Web-savvy doctors would.

It’s a small step, but having tried to push the envelope (and, ahem, did to the edges of legality and a wee beyond) when I was in pharma, this is a good thing.