Graphic from Time

Pfizer’s Twitter feed seems to be benefiting from the same ingredient that powers its blockbuster erectile drug.

After only six days @pfizer_news had jumped to 631 followers by 8 o’clock this morning.

Kudos to communications SVP Sally Sussman and global media VP Ray Kerins for prevailing in a heavily regulated industry whose litigation-wary greybeards are notoriously conservative when it comes to social media.

Pharma lawyers have argued that any communications through channels feeding directly to patients — without the traditional bureaucratic review of copy, photos, video and other content — could go south quickly.

“What if” scenarios abound.  In a litigious world where the prescribing information required by regulators is often the size of an encylopedia, it’s easy to see a plaintiff complaining that he or she notified a drugmaker about an adverse reaction via Twitter but got no reply only to suffer….

For those and many other reasons, pharma has arrived later to the Twitter party than many other consumer-facing brands.  Those brave enough to tweet about remedies, clinical trials and medical conferences have taken markedly different approaches.

The most conversational pharmatweep this far is Johnson & Johnson’s Marc Monseau, who is followed by 1,745 and follows 1,096.  He has updated 316 times since launching the @JNJComm feed to supplement the New Jersey firm’s two-year-old “JNJ BTW” blog.

Novartis, based in Switzerland, has published 86 updates on its @novartis Twitter feed since November.  Unlike Monseau, there’s no named personality behind the tweets,  which are mainly 140-character teasers of releases on the Novartis media web site and some occasional industry news.  The lack of interaction is stark — with the company following only 10 on Twitter despite attracting an audience of 2,328.

Germany’s Boehringer was lauded by Jim Edwards on the life sciences news site BioValley Basel for allowing its Twitter personality — 2,178 followers and following 1,657 — to “engage in some harmless banter” rather than toeing the corporate line.

Merck seems to be using the Twitter community only as a recruiting tool, but I question how many Twitter users want to work for a company that’s afraid to engage in a more meaningful way.

In New York, Pfizer’s new Twitter staffers were quick to reply today when I sent a direct message to ask why there were a separate @pfizer (”it’s not Pfizer and not official”) and @pfizer_news Twitter pages.  That kind of willingness to snap quick replies to customers, media and others can only help build trust and goodwill with everyone except the legal department.