Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8069

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

Miller L.
Dr. Pitchman Sells More Drugs
PR Watch 2005 Jul 18
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3854

Full text:

Source: Wall Street Journal (sub req’d), July 15, 2005
Drug companies have new top salesmen: doctors. According to the Wall Street Journal, hiring a doctor to speak about drug therapies to other doctors has proven to be a “highly effective” way for the pharmaceutical industry to market its drugs. “An internal study done by Merck & Co. several years ago calculated the ‘return on investment’ from doctor-led discussion groups was almost double the return on meetings led by the company’s own sales force,” the Journal reports. “According to the document, doctors who attended a lecture by another doctor wrote an additional $623.55 worth of prescriptions for the painkiller Vioxx over a 12-month period compared with doctors who didn’t attend. Doctors who participated in the more intimate discussions wrote an additional $717.53 worth of prescriptions for Vioxx, which Merck pulled from the market last year over concerns about cardiovascular side effects. That compared to an increase of only $165.87 in Vioxx prescriptions by doctors who attended a meeting with a salesperson.”