Main Subject - Internet and Businesses Online

So you’ve got this idea to sell online and you’re going to make zillions. Maybe you want to see if your idea is going to be the next wireless mousetrap. What do you do now? Well there’s a huge amount to cipher through and marketing is an

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

athema to productivity, especially when it comes to the internet. This high-level article should answer some of the basic process questions that are asked by clients who are just starting to sell online. I will save detail about SSL cert

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ficates, server configurations and encrypted data for another article. Here’s the scoop on what to know before you even begin to explore developing an online store.

Let’s start with the banking: Save yourself some headaches by making som

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

early and informed decisions about your banking solution. This area is often overlooked but it makes more sense to start with your destination in mind. The bank is where your cash is, and that’s the goal isn’t it?

Before you sell anythi

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

g, whether online or in a store, you have to have a merchant account with a bank. A merchant account allows you to process credit card transactions and actually retrieve the money from credit card orders. Lots of e-commerce providers also

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

supply a merchant account as part of a package deal. Yahoo! and QuickBooks offer such packages and are worth exploring for their convenience.

The way transactions are received for traditional merchant accounts can vary from bank to bank.

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

The process for getting the actual orders to the bank can be a manual, order-by-order process that is done over the phone. This is time consuming and grueling task that will put the most dedicated owner or employee to the edge of a cliff.

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

Another common way for small businesses to get the orders to the bank is to enter them as a batch through a web interface. Often times a vendor will have several orders from their online store in a spreadsheet or in a format that can pr

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

duce a CSV, or comma separated variables file. This is a format that most databases can recognize and import. A file like this can often be imported or uploaded to a bank’s website and then the orders can be verified and maintained via th

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

bank’s interface. This process is a significant improvement over the manual method, but it is still a bit more involved than the automated process that I’ll discuss in a minute.

Both of these two processes beg the question, “But how do

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

get my orders from the site?” Well the answer is, of course, “Lots of ways!” Unfortunately the easy way is also the most risky: having the order form on the site simply send an email to be processed by the vendor. Having an email order w

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

th credit card information sent via email completely negates having a secure checkout process. There is no need to bother with an SSL certificate and encrypted info when the final result is sent via totally insecure email. Frankly this wa

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

is a very bad practice., though many sites still operate this way.

The developer of your e-commerce site should be able to provide a secure means of retrieving your orders. There are several solutions available and you should discuss th

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

best one for you and make a decision before development or implementation begins. Several out-of-the-box e-commerce solutions are available as open-source options. These solutions can often be plugged into an existing site. OSCommerce is

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

available at www.oscommerce.org for download. This is an exceptional PHP based e-commerce solution with lots of built-in functionality. Zencart is another popular alternative. Since t

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

e online purchasing idea is not a new one, there are several suitable options to explore. You may want to take a look at PayPal also. I will discuss this solution in another article. Typically though, if you expect medium to heavy volume,

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

the overhead of a PayPal account is not worth the pay-off of having a real e-commerce solution.

Ideally, your orders will reach the bank in one of two ways. Either they will be manually uploaded via CSV or an automated process within the

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

e-commerce application. This second options will most likely take some development work (smaller businesses often choose not to go this direction for cost reasons). Some of the out-of-the-box solutions mentioned above have pre-built ways

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

to automate orders. These should be discussed in more detail with your developer and explored with your bank’s merchant services account manager. The actual implementation of a shopping cart and online catalog is a big piece of the pie bu

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

there’s a good amount more to consider than simply getting the site to accept orders.

Do a bit of homework and don’t be afraid to ask around with developers and consultants. Like any project you’ll want to know what to expect at the end

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Main Subject - E-commerce and Merchant Accounts - A Primer for Small Businesses

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