Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2012
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
Galewitz P.
Study: Drugmaker Ads Can Backfire
AP Business Writer 1999 Jun 17
Full text:
Television, newspaper and magazine advertisements for prescription drugs succeed in getting patients to ask doctors for the medication, a new study confirmed Thursday.
But patients sometimes leave their physician’s office with a prescription for a competing medication, a health industry researcher said at a conference where the findings were released.
And that is one of the biggest risksto promoting prescription drugs directly to consumers: Unlike any other product promotion, no matter how well an ad persuades consumers to ask for a drug, they still need a physician’s permission to get it. Many of those doctors prefer a different remedy.
The study reported that about a third of the consumers who saw a drug ad have talked to a doctor about it. Of those inspired to request a particular drug because of an ad, about one in four received a prescription from their doctor, but not necessarily for the drug they requested.
The survey of 1,000 adults was commissioned by both Time and Health magazines and had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. The magazines are among those to have profited from the rise in pharmaceutical advertising directed at consumers, which took off in 1997 when the Food and Drug Administration relaxed rules governing disclosure of risks and side effects.
Pharmaceutical companies spent $1.35 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising in 1998, a 24 percent increase over 1997 and three times the 1995 amount, according to market research firm IMS Health.
The rise of consumer advertising is a major factor behind the recent surge in pharmaceutical sales, experts say. Prescription drug sales totaled $94 billion in 1998, a 16 percent increase from 1998.
Spending big dollars on consumer targeted drug campaign can pay big dividends. For example, Schering-Plough spent $136 million advertising allergy drug Claritin last year and generated $1.9 billion in U.S. sales.
But such consumer marketing campaigns can also backfire.
``The highest spending does not equate to generate the most prescriptions. A lot of money is spent on new products but doctors write prescriptions for competitive products,’‘ said Suzanne Ramspacher, an official with market research firm IMS Health of Plymouth Meeting, Pa.
For example, Merck spent $41 million on consumer advertising for its cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor last year, six times the amount its competitor Warner-Lambert spent promoting its drug, Lipitor, according to Competitive Media Reporting. Merck may have inadvertently helped Lipitor with its campaign, said Ramspacher. That’s because Merck’s heavy advertising drove consumers to doctors for the medication, but physicians increasingly have prescribed Lipitor. In the last two years, Lipitor has dominated the U.S. cholesterol-lowering market, and now outsells its nearest competitor, Zocor, almost 2-to-1.
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s cholesterol-lowering drug Pravachol has met a similar fate as Zocor. Bristol Myers spent a total of $126 million advertising Pravachol in 1997 and 1998, only to lose market share to Zocor.
``That’s the risk they take going out there,’‘ said Julie Kline, marketing analyst with Scott-Levin, a drug industry consulting firm in Newtown, Pa. ``Bristol unintentionally helped Warner-Lambert … and that’s not what you want to happen when you spend $67 million.’‘
Bristol-Myers has since discontinued its consumer advertising of Pravachol.
