Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4692

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: book

Drake D.
Making medicine making money
Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel 1993

Abstract:

Chapter 2 (pages 25-45) discusses promotion. There are 45000 sales representatives in the United States and the average American doctor sees 2-3 detailers per week. Sales representatives combined with advertising are more effective in associating a specific drug with a medical problem than journal advertising alone. Companies in the United States collectively spend more than $10 billion a year on promotion, with about $3 billion going to detailers and $500 million for journal advertisements. Sales representatives can dramatically increase overall sales of drugs. Companies also use other promotional techniques including: ghost writing of articles; paying physicians favourable to the product to lecture on it; paying doctors to take part in postmarketing studies that are really designed to get the doctor to prescribe more of the product. Companies also fund continuing medical education as a form of promotion and create consumer demand by issuing press releases and flooding media outlets with packaged stories and television productions. Drug representatives also target hospital formulary committees trying to get their companies’ products placed in the formulary. The Food and Drug Administration was forced to back down on regulations that would have ensured that companies could not disguise promotional efforts in supposedly independent programs, such as continuing medical education.

Keywords:
*analysis/United States/promotion costs and volume/sales representatives/journal advertisements/ghost writing/continuing medical education/CME/corporate funding/Food and Drug Administration/FDA/postmarketing research/ seeding studies/ conference speakers/ sponsored symposia & conferences/ press conferences and releases/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: GIFT GIVING/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: PAYMENT FOR MEALS, ACCOMODATION, TRAVEL, ENTERTAINMENT/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DETAILING/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENTS/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: FORMULARY INCLUSION/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: PRESCRIBING, DRUG USE/PROMOTION AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION: DOCTORS/PROMOTION BY THIRD PARTIES: HEALTH PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS/PROMOTION DISGUISED: CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS/PROMOTION DISGUISED: POSTMARKETING RESEARCH/PROMOTION DISGUISED: PRESS CONFERENCES AND PRESS COVERAGE/PROMOTION DISGUISED: SUPPORT FOR CME/VOLUME OF AND EXPENDITURE ON PROMOTION