Facebook holds private health summit to woo pharma companies

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) will hold its first Health Summit Tuesday in New York City in an attempt to woo pharma companies into advertising with the social media giant. The event which is invitation-only and closed to media will be the company’s first health event aimed at "discussing opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in mobile advertising," a Facebook spokesperson told FOX Business. The summit’s theme is “Health in the Era of Mobile.” “The audience will include pharma and OTC marketers and agencies,” the spokesperson added without elaborating on specific companies. Last month, Facebook held a similar event with luxury retailers—also the first of its kind—to persuade high-end brands that they need to start embracing social media to attract new consumers. “People go to their phones first and most frequently, like a hummingbird throughout the day,” Thomas Puckett, creative strategist at Facebook said to the audience in May. “And, [brands] can be there every time, bringing content to them,” he said. Facebook says key topics for discussion at the Health Summit will include “creative, measurement and video.”  However, unlike other industries, the pharmaceutical industry faces strict regulations on how they can promote its drugs on social channels.