Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12876

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

Sakson S.
Drugmaker Will Manage Diseases to Keep People Healthy, Sell More Drugs
The Associated Press 1994 Nov 29

Full text:

Merck & Co. will use its research expertise to help doctors manage diseases more effectively and cheaply – a strategy that will make people healthier and allow the company to sell more drugs, its chairman said Tuesday.

Raymond Gilmartin outlined the pharmaceutical maker’s plans for “disease management” during a speech to Wall Street securities analysts.

Merck will research the thousands of customers who buy its drugs to prove those drugs are a better choice for treatment of diseases than more expensive surgery and other medical procedures, Gilmartin said.

Armed with such studies, Merck’s prescription drug benefits division, Medco, can approach doctors and show them the drugs’ benefits, he said.

Merck-sponsored research recently proved how Merck’s Zocor and other drugs that lower cholesterol can reduce the risk of heart attack and save lives, Gilmartin said. About 75 percent of the heart attack patients in the world have elevated cholesterol, which can block arteries, but only 10 percent to 20 percent take cholesterol lowering drugs, he said.

Studies still underway are intended to prove that Merck’s prostate enlargement drug Proscar cuts urinary problems and the need for prostate surgery, and that its experimental drug Fosamax reduces broken bones among victims of osteoporosis.

“To us, disease management means treating diseases more effectively primarily by using pharmaceuticals more effectively,” Gilmartin told the New York Society of Securities Analysts. “And, by the use of pharmaceuticals, changing health outcomes and improving the quality of health care. In the process, the use of drugs may go up, but total health care costs will go down.”

The disease management concept is getting increased discussion in drug industry circles as manufacturers seek ways to keep profits growing in an era when insurance companies and health care plans are demanding lower costs.

Drugmakers no longer are able to impose annual double-digit price increases as they did in the 1980s. They hope to capitalize on the fact that drugs – despite their high costs – are still often the cheapest way to treat diseases.