2 comments
Of course they market to physicians. The physcians are the people who need to hear about new pharmaceuticals, not consumers. If a company develops some cool new medicine, don't you think it would be wise for them to inform the people who can actually prescribe it?
The majority of people needing medicine rely on their physcian being well informed and knoweledgable about new treatments.
Of course they market to physicians. The physcians are the people who need to hear about new pharmaceuticals, not consumers. If a company develops some cool new medicine, don't you think it would be wise for them to inform the people who can actually prescribe it?
The majority of people needing medicine rely on their physcian being well informed and knoweledgable about new treatments.
The interesting thing is the study spans from 1997 to 2016, in 2010 the Sunshine Act was passed which requires all financial relationships between physician be disclosed (if you're a public company you can get in some serious trouble for violating this). I would guess that the data pre-Sunshine act may not be complete since there was no mandate to report it. After the Sunshine act things changed drastically, no more dinners or "consulting fees", in fact there are rules on how you can communicate that you have a new drug (you can't just approach physicians with information the physician now has to approach the company to request information during which point responses are recorded to ensure nothing that can be perceived as marketing is said)
Of course marketing costs will continue to go up due to eroom's law, as the creation/development of new drugs/treatments becomes more and more difficult and expensive the harder it becomes to get new drug on the market (Getting an NDA with the FDA is a slow and extensive process). If you're actually able to get a drug on the market (most pharma companies never get a drug on the market, many never get past R&D) it's vital that doctor's see value in it and prescribe it (physicians don't always keep up to date with reading studies and looking at drug data, this means that often they are not prescribing the best treatment for their patients and are instead just going with whatever they've been prescribing all along, which sucks if you're a patient and there's something way safer/more effective out there).
As much as I've heard people complain about patients that google and go to their doctor with ideas, some of the time it's good to find some peer reviewed information and ask your doctor about it. Often if your medical problem is persistent it's good to bring some new information into the fold.