Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12120

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Perrone M.
Drug Promotion Takes to the Web
Associated Press 2007 Dec 4
http://www.smh.com.au/news/TECHNOLOGY/Drug-Promotion-Takes-to-the-Web/2007/12/05/1196530715282.html

Full text:

WASHINGTON – Patients today are less likely to bump into drug sales representatives at a doctor’s office as pharmaceutical companies adopt cheaper technologies and more discreet ways to pitch drugs.

The changes are partly in response to a backlash against overly aggressive marketing of the past decade, when many executives believed the company with the biggest sales force would have the highest sales. From 1999 to 2001, U.S. drug companies expanded their sales staffs, on average, by 42 percent, according to the most recent research available from Datamonitor.

Back then, many physicians dealt with half a dozen or more people from each major drug company as ever-larger armies of sample-toting salespeople were mobilized. But the marketing blitz took a toll on doctors.

“A lot of practices across the U.S. basically said ‘we don’t want to see you anymore because it’s too much of an interruption,’” said Dr. Dave Switzer, a family doctor based in northern Virginia who gives unannounced salespeople a minute of his time.

He may be on the generous side. Seventy-five percent of sales calls these days don’t involve a face-to-face meeting with a doctor, according to research by Leerink Swann & Co. Industry executives acknowledge increased demands on physician’s time, including paperwork required by health insurers.

However, the marketing shift goes beyond a time crunch. In recent years, media companies have increasingly scrutinized how drug companies court physicians, from handing out branded pens to funding lavish conferences at exotic locations.

“Patients are watching, medical students are watching and it’s just become harder and harder to justify these interactions,” said David Kramer, chief executive of Digitas Health, a company that specializes in online pharmaceutical marketing.

Perhaps the most important driver in the effort to improve selling techniques is the bottom line. Revenues are shrinking industrywide as many blockbuster drugs from the past decade lose patent protection. Dwindling sales recently led the industry’s biggest player, Pfizer Inc., to cut its U.S. sales force by 20 percent or about 2,500 salespeople. Rivals such as AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb have also reduced U.S. sales staff in recent years.

“We’ve made sure we have fewer representatives calling on any one physician and made those representatives more accountable for each of their relationships,” said David Snow, an AstraZeneca vice president. “And the technology actually enhances that by giving them more information and more ways to present it.”

AstraZeneca and other companies are focusing on Web-based visits between doctors and salespeople. The appointments are made for the evening or weekends, and a sales representative gives a presentation through an online video link or over the telephone while directing the physician to Web pages. Executives say it is becoming one of their most effective selling techniques.

According to Merck & Co. Inc., the average online appointment with a physician lasts 10 minutes, compared with 4 minutes for an in-person meeting.

Technology is changing how companies do sales calls in other ways. Representatives used to carry pages of company studies and medical journal articles. Using tablet PCs, sales people can present their information faster and direct the doctor to company Web pages.

Meanwhile, the tablet PC automatically records information about what was presented and how it was received and sends it back to the marketing department. This feedback can be used to judge the quality of the company’s message , and sometimes the skill of the person presenting it.

Consulting firm Exploria SPA says more than 70 percent of drug salespeople carry a tablet PC even though some representatives complain the devices allow managers to peer over their shoulders too much.

Industry executives say in-person selling will remain the core of their sales strategy although the past two years have seen an increase in online promotions that eliminate salespeople. According to one industry survey, nearly half of physicians prefer to learn about new medications through the Internet, instead of through a salesperson.

People that design these online promotions say doctors are simply displaying the same consumer preferences that have made businesses like Amazon.com and eBay so successful.

“I shop online, I consume information online and I don’t have to wait for the newspaper to hit the driveway,” said Bruce Grant, an executive with Digitas Health. “Doctors are just doing the same thing you and I are as consumers: they’re taking advantage of the full power and convenience these new media give you.”

So-called e-details include Web sites set up specifically for doctors and video presentations sent via e-mail. Increasingly, e-details amount to mini-movies, using high production values and medical experts, urging doctors to prescribe the company’s latest product.

“The traditional model that served us very well for many years is broken,” said Gary Pond, a marketing executive at Merck. “We’re going to have to evolve to a different way of doing business, and technology is one tool to help get us there.”