• Thurs news: Lilly’s weight-loss drug prevents diabetes. Merck pays $588M for bispecific. Amgen speaks out about bone density issues with obesity drug. PTC gets gene therapy approval. JNJ’s 340B legal fight. See more on our front page

IMS vs Cegedim- anyone use both?

Quote




For which service? Best addresses, data consolidation?

Generally the only service I would suggest Cegedim for is sales data in Western EU. Stay away from their data services in the US.

If you are looking for best of breed address look to the other AMA DBL's, not IMS or WK.

I won't advertise, but look through the AMA DBL list and filter the list to those that actually do Pharma specific work, not just mailing lists.
 




Anonymous said:
For which service? Best addresses, data consolidation?

Generally the only service I would suggest Cegedim for is sales data in Western EU. Stay away from their data services in the US.

If you are looking for best of breed address look to the other AMA DBL's, not IMS or WK.

I won't advertise, but look through the AMA DBL list and filter the list to those that actually do Pharma specific work, not just mailing lists.
Click to expand...

IMS receives all of the AMA data. The AMA data often is a major cause of incorrect physician information. You're better off with IMS who receives corrections from its customers where appropriate. Garbage in, Garbage out.
 












To make a point at the AMA data being a cause of problems - it is not.

IMS, like many of the DBL's, bastardize the AMA data by integrating their own.

Consider this, you buy IMS sales+demographics data, where the address accuracy is at best 70% but IMS says "for another 1/2 million you can get the best addresses". Where do you think those best addresses come from - the AMA.

Whenever clients complain about the address accuracy IMS blames the AMA when in fact it is the addresses from their sales data collection that are the problem.

The AMA best address has about a 97% accuracy rate.

I will not shill for my employer in a public forum, but if someone needs Physicians Universe (physician addresses), look for the one or two DBLs who will license it intact.

As far as the IMS UK data, it is about the same quality as Cegedim's. If you are a US IMS client they may be willing to bundle it up for you with a discount. Also, do not waste your time contacting the US Cegedim offices for pricing on this. Go to their corporate website and find the local UK contact info.
 




Anonymous said:
To make a point at the AMA data being a cause of problems - it is not.

IMS, like many of the DBL's, bastardize the AMA data by integrating their own.

Consider this, you buy IMS sales+demographics data, where the address accuracy is at best 70% but IMS says "for another 1/2 million you can get the best addresses". Where do you think those best addresses come from - the AMA.

Whenever clients complain about the address accuracy IMS blames the AMA when in fact it is the addresses from their sales data collection that are the problem.

The AMA best address has about a 97% accuracy rate.

I will not shill for my employer in a public forum, but if someone needs Physicians Universe (physician addresses), look for the one or two DBLs who will license it intact.

As far as the IMS UK data, it is about the same quality as Cegedim's. If you are a US IMS client they may be willing to bundle it up for you with a discount. Also, do not waste your time contacting the US Cegedim offices for pricing on this. Go to their corporate website and find the local UK contact info.
Click to expand...

I do not know who posted this, but this is correct.

+1
 




Which part of your answer do you feel is correct? I can't speak to the latter, but the former is incorrect - both IMS and WK are already DBL's which receive the AMA physician universe (complete with addresses) intact. IMS offers the ability to supplement the address data with other sources, but companies tend to rely on their own call files for targeting and sales credit.

As for an accuracy rate of 97% for the AMA best address - put down the crack pipe. The AMA is an advocacy/lobbying organization, it is not a data intelligence outfit. Their address information is as good as their participating members want it to be, which is not great. It's decent, but not as great as you think it to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Originally Posted by Anonymous
To make a point at the AMA data being a cause of problems - it is not.

IMS, like many of the DBL's, bastardize the AMA data by integrating their own.

Consider this, you buy IMS sales+demographics data, where the address accuracy is at best 70% but IMS says "for another 1/2 million you can get the best addresses". Where do you think those best addresses come from - the AMA.

Whenever clients complain about the address accuracy IMS blames the AMA when in fact it is the addresses from their sales data collection that are the problem.

The AMA best address has about a 97% accuracy rate.

I will not shill for my employer in a public forum, but if someone needs Physicians Universe (physician addresses), look for the one or two DBLs who will license it intact.

As far as the IMS UK data, it is about the same quality as Cegedim's. If you are a US IMS client they may be willing to bundle it up for you with a discount. Also, do not waste your time contacting the US Cegedim offices for pricing on this. Go to their corporate website and find the local UK contact info.

I do not know who posted this, but this is correct.

+1
 




I never said IMS & WKH were not DBL's (you are correct, they are), just that they do not deliver to their clients all of the data the clients are entitled to through their AMA license because it would reduce the value of IMS's own offerings.

The proof IMS sucks eggs is the fact that they expect you to pay again for data you are already expecting (e.g. paying extra for best address) and charge you when you point out that data they are delivering is incorrect. Why should I have to pay to point out to IMS that an address is wrong or a physician is dead? Oh yeah, they will "research" 25 a week for free; that's like a cellular company saying they won't charge you for the time the phone is ringing.

If you can't read between the lines above - IMS' customer service sucks. The data is generally acceptable but the arrogance is over the top. Why should anyone pay to be abused when they can go to a smaller shop, with equal or better data and be treated like a king.
 




You obviously do not like IMS and that is your opinion. But you're quotes regarding pricing and accruacy are way off base.

AMA "accuracy" at 97%? Accuracy for what, mailing? That doesn't mean the person is actually at the address. The AMA reports over 1M D and DO's, but theyr active members are only about 200k. How do you get "accurate" addresses when there is only 200k active members?

Lastly, if you're talking just about Best Address, you are completely missing the value of what IMS has to offer for understanding your customers (people and businesses).

I completely agree that being charged for fixing bad information is wrong. But at the same time, if there are no limits in place, customers will (have) abuse the system.

No I am not an IMS employee.
 




Top Bottom
Back
Quote