Ahead of our Marketer of the Year awards ceremony in November, we thought we’d take a look at some of the most important tools available to modern pharma marketers.

Social media is increasingly important for all industries. Pharma might face an uphill battle to be heard among a sea of celebrities and breaking news -- but as shown in this month’s cover feature (p34), with exclusive research conducted for PharmaTimes, companies are already starting to figure out what works best.

Of course, social media is just one channel among many that marketers can harness to get their message across, and these days marketing is really about multichannel strategies. That said, research shows that the European industry is falling behind in this area, so in The Secrets of Multichannel (p31) we ask how they can start to close the gap.

Other articles this month include a look at an exciting new gene therapy delivery technology (p28), an interview with Bayer’s new UK & Ireland CEO Lars Bruening (p39) and a focus on joint working in IBD Registry Industry Working Group (p20) -- along with a Patient Files focusing on ulcerative colitis (p45).