Devil in the detail

Jun 16th 2005

Many of the promotional techniques used by drug companies are similar to those for selling cars. But drug reps do not actually sell drugs; they explain, or “detail” their products to physicians, and hope to persuade them to prescribe the drugs. Pharma firms back up this effort with ads and articles in medical journals, sponsored conferences and continuing medical education, plus direct-to-consumer advertising in some countries. The past decade has seen a massive rise in pharmaceutical marketing, to the point where a firm such as Novartis is spending around 33% of sales on promotion, compared with about 19% on R&D.
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As for “detailing”, drug-company bosses defend it as a means of technology transfer. A greater emphasis on blockbuster drugs, together with several mega-mergers over the past decade, has caused the number of reps in rich countries—and particularly America—to rocket, along with the numbers of drugs they are selling (see chart 6).

http://www.economist.com/node/4054012