Pharmacy 'State of the Industry' address to be broadcast on Web

WENDY HAVENS
DM Staff Writer

The Center for Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management at The University of Mississippi will broadcast its third annual State of the Industry address live over the Internet Wednesday.

"We're going to broadcast the entire event live over the Internet using Real Video," said Noel Wilkin of the School of Pharmacy, who handled the technological side of the broadcast. "We can handle a thousand simultaneous streams a minute. In other words, a thousand people can view it simultaneously."

In the process, footage from a regular video camera goes to an encoder where it is converted to a digital image. It then passes to a Unix-based server, from which it can be distributed over the Internet.

Philip Brown, publisher of the pharmaceutical industry journal, Scrip, will deliver the address. E.M. "Mick" Kolassa, associate professor of pharmacy administration at Ole Miss; Bruce Siecker, president of Business Research Services Inc.; Kim Slocum, director of strategic planning and business development for AstraZeneca and Brendan Ward, founding partner of Regan Campbell Ward, will also speak.

"This really wouldn't happen without the assistance of a lot of people on campus," Wilkin said. The Teleproductions Resource Center provided much of the equipment, including two cameras, and will be coordinating the audio mix.

"We're going to be feeding audio/video mix to the Internet and at the same time recording the mix for the School of Pharmacy," said Marvin Williams, production coordinator for the Teleproductions Resource Center.

Ken Boutwell, director of the Telecommunications Resource Center, said Ole Miss has done live Internet Broadcasts before, in addition to the first State of the Industry Address.

"We did something similar back in January in Jackson with the announcement of the Barksdale Institute," Boutwell said. "It's not difficult anymore to do this sort of thing so somebody may be doing it that we're not even aware of."

This year's address will be followed by an e-mail discussion session in which viewers from all over the country will be able to e-mail questions to the five speakers.

"It offers a unique dimension to the State of the Industry address," Wilkin said. "I imagine that people will like that dimension. Rather than just viewing, it adds an element of interactivity."

The event begins Wednesday at 8 a.m. in Butler Auditorium in the Alumni Center. The address itself will be at 1:30 p.m., followed by the discussion panel. The entire event can be viewed free and live over the Internet at www.rx.olemiss.edu/ cpmm.

The Center, a joint endeavor between the schools of Business Administration and Pharmacy, was designed to teach and promote the marketing and management of pharmaceutical products and services, has hosted the event since 1998. The first State of the Industry address, given by Robert Ingram, CEO and president of Glaxo Wellcome, plc., was also broadcast over the Internet.