Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2227

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

Marketing Medication: Can a Good Deal Mean Bad Medicine?
ABC News 2001 Nov 27
http://web.archive.org/web/20040917075843/http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA011127Free_prozac.html

Full text:

Pharmaceutical companies have been offering free samples of popular drugs for years, but lately coupons and ads seem to be everywhere. Coupons offering a month’s free supply of key medications are available through ads running in many major newspapers and Web sites.

ABCNEWS’ Dr. Nancy Snyderman said she worries that coupons for some free drugs might drive eager consumers to get prescriptions without seeing their regular doctors first.

“Let’s say you find a coupon on a Saturday and call the doctor who may be on call for a big group,” Snyderman said on Good Morning America. “You can say, ‘I’ve already taken this medication, I just need a refill or a prescription for this or that,’ there are ways for patients who are savvy to slip through the system. I think that’s what concerns a lot of us.”

Eli Lilly & Co. offers online coupons for a free month’s supply of Prozac, while Pfizer suggests consumers see their doctor for free Viagra samples during its TV ads.

Loosened Ad Restrictions

Pharmaceutical industry analyst Hemant Shah of HKS & Co., in Warren, N.J., said that major companies started aggressively marketing products after the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its rules about direct-to-consumer advertising in 1997.

“Companies have been trying to reach out to consumers so they can encourage them to use a specific brand and so they can expand the market to those who are not currently using the drug at all,” Shah said.

As advertising barriers have fallen, competition among drug makers has grown fiercer. Many blockbuster drugs have lost or are losing their patent protection, and their manufacturers are struggling to stave off competition from companies that make generic versions that sell for 20 to 40 percent less.

Companies say free supplies educate patients and reduce costs. But Snyderman said the companies’ motivation is to get more consumers to use their drugs.

However, Shah said brand loyalty is difficult to achieve in the pharmaceutical industry. “When consumers see the price difference when a drug becomes generic the brand loyalty evaporates,” he said.

In the first week that a generic version of Prozac was released, Eli Lilly lost thousands of customers. Now the company has created Prozac Weekly – a new version of the drug with a new patent. TV ads for Prozac Weekly, designed to replace the once-a-day antidepressant pill, feature music and a woman’s voice saying … ‘When my kids need a playmate …’ Her voice is followed by the announcer’s line: ‘Prozac Weekly is here. Ask your doctor if it’s right for you.’

Snyderman said the commercial provides consumers with only a small piece of the entire picture. “Prozac Weekly is for people who have already been on Prozac,” Snyderman said. “It’s not meant for that person who may be depressed after Sept. 11, who says ‘that’s the pill for me.’”