Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15358

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

Goldstein J.
The Long Decline of Drug Sales Reps
The Wall Street Journal Blog 2009 Mar 23
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/03/23/the-long-decline-of-drug-sales-reps/

Full text:

The number of sales reps working for U.S. drug makers has fallen from 102,000 in 2007 to 92,000 today – and is projected to fall to 75,000 in the next few years.

Those figures, from the consulting firm ZS Associates, are part of a broader shift: A drug industry looking to cut costs as many doctors look to cut back on the time they spend talking to the drug reps who have long filled their waiting rooms. Here’s the story from American Medical News, an AMA house organ.

Some other interesting figures from the story:

Reps talk to a physician in person on about 20% of visits to doctor’s offices. On about 37% of visits, they wind up leaving drug samples, according to the consulting group TNS Healthcare.

Roughly a quarter of physicians work in practices that refuse to see drug reps. Of those who do see reps, about 40% will meet only during scheduled appointments – a figure that’s on the rise, according to a survey by SK&A Information Services.

The drug industry is cutting back on the trinkets and outings that have long been part of drug reps’ offerings.

But an an exec from the drug industry’s trade group spoke up for the value of sales reps visiting docs’ offices: “Interactions between physicians and pharmaceutical company representatives benefit patient care through the exchange of information about new medicines, new uses of medicines, the latest clinical data, appropriate dosing and emerging safety issues.”