Welcome to the digital marketing roundup, which this week features a French campaign from Genzyme, Kantar Health's partnership with Sermo, Havas' acquisition of Creative Lynx and a new Facebook app that allows secure doctor-patient communication.

There's also a link to the next in our new Tip Of The Week series, which is produced in association with CDM and can be found in the Digital Handbook.

Tip of the week: responsive web design

Sanofi's Genzyme business has launched what it says is the first French website dedicated to raising awareness of familial hypercholesterolaemia, an inherited disorder that can lead to the premature onset of cardiovascular complications if not treated properly. The company is working on a new familial hypercholesterolaemia treatment in the shape of kynamro, which was submitted to European regulators for approval last year. The firm said it hopes the new www.info-hf.fr site, which includes video (still pictured above) and other resources, will improve knowledge and management of the disorder, for which it says clinical diagnosis and genetic screening are rarely performed adequately.

Kantar Health has formed a research partnership with US online physician community Sermo in a deal that will see the consultants provide business insights and strategic recommendations to industry clients. The exclusive research and content partnership will also serve as a foundation for Kantar to enhance and develop new syndicated market information services. Kantar Health will access Sermo's physician community, which numbers more than 125,000 US-based physicians across 68 specialties, to provide business insights and strategic recommendations to pharma and biotech, diagnostic and medical device companies.

Havas has acquired a majority stake in the Manchester, UK-based digital communications agency Creative Lynx. For Havas, the move strengthens the Paris-based group's position in the healthcare comms sector, as Creative Lynx will sit alongside Havas Worldwide Health, Euro RSCG Life and Health4Brands. Creative Lynx, whose client roster includes Johnson & Johnson, GSK, GE and AstraZeneca, offers comms solutions through social media, closed-loop marketing and mobile. (Read more on Communique.)

US health IT company RegisterPatient.com has launched a first-of-its-kind Facebook app that allows secure contact between doctors and their patients via the social network. The firm says it allows doctors to “quickly and easily add a secure patient portal to their Facebook page” from which patients can request appointments, request prescription refills and send secure messages to their doctor. 

This week the Digital Intelligence blog also covered Lilly's mobile app for finding cancer trials and the EMA's new website, which makes reports of suspected adverse events available to the public.

Digital inspiration for pharma on mobile, social media, strategy, best practice, regulations and more