I have been a rep and/or manager in the industry for 30 years. I am now one of the "old timers" who still think this is an honorable profession. Unfortunately our role has been diminished by the marketing departments who now run the sales force, the ridiculous compliance regulations that prevent us from
I am wondering how opinions varied by speciality, if that was part of the study.
We all know about psychiatry. My dermatologist wears his pharma ties (literally) on the gold chain around his neck.
Hi OII,
Sorry for the belated reply. Unfortunately, Health Affairs would only allow me to link to the abstract, not the complete study, which I gather requires a subscription.
However, if there are specific questions, I'm happy to approach one of the authors to learn if additional info is available.
Regards
ed
I had Norplant in 1991 - 1992 (18-19 yrs old) for about a year and bled the whole year I was on it. I was sick with headaches, severe acne and have had serious health issues ever since. I live in Maryland and wanted to know if anyone is dealing with Norplant problems
We could improve efficacy by spending millions of dollars to do additional trials to get a new indication. We will get 3 years exclusivity and the privilege of spending millions more to promote our brand new latest and greatest indication.
What's the payoff? If the drug is already generic or nearing LOE, the doctors will
I also worked for DaVita for six years and "Anonymous" sounds like they have it out for DaVita. They are one of the best companies to work for and are far from "cheap". I have never heard of such a thing as not being able to use a band-aid...are you making this up? Patient
I like to think of customer value within the framework of Value Based Management (VBM), which is a core philosophy I've been trained in. Expressed mathemetically, V=Q/P, where V= value, Q=quality and P=price.
Thus. one way to increase value would be to reduce price or improve quality. With respect to reducing price, realistically that is
I agree with the notion that it doesn't quite seem to add up that young doctors tend to want to be less "forward" in disclosing relationships with drugmakers.
Anyone have any thoughts as to why that would be?
JB
In cancer medicine, I've always been for taking medical oncologists (chemotherapists) out of the retail pharmacy business and force them to be doctors again.
Great article, Ed. Deafening silence - no
comments...?!
Wonder who the 24 people out of 100 working in clin dev were? :-) People need to get on the same page, but as noted, too many *business models* not aligned around the same goals - one goal being a science-driven culture.
snippet from article:
"....Meanwhile, only 56
I should qualify the word "work" as relates to today's drug rep. Several years ago there was a DVD created by a former rep that puts in fake calls at random or anytime you want, so that you don't really have to work at all, let alone work overtime. Sold like hotcakes on
The reality is that Medicare presently reimburses doctors $17 for a 30 minute office visit, not enoughy to break even. Thus they welcome patients who can make their lives easier. Not the best way to practice medicine, I agree, but that's why I'm pushing for more concierge medicine, where you pay up front
OII -- so the rationale is that pharma companies shouldn't be allowed to promote their products because physicians are too lazy to practice good medicine? If so, I think the state of modern medicine, not marketing, is the real issue here.
All I wanted is that doctors will make sure that they pushing products that will really be helpful to their patients and not just because they are also work like businessmen pushing products for more income.
sok82, if you hand your doctor a DTC ad with a request for an Rx you've probably knocked about six minutes off your office visit. More time to see more patients and make more moolah.
Observer, actually, the more important point is that no matter who is hiring in europe all of the major pharma players are moving their profits out of european banks because of the euro debt crisis. Now if Obama and Congress just play ball and not whack us for bringing that money stateside we might
Angela, I'm curious...what other forms of free speech would you ban?
I've never had a TV ad diagnose me with a disease or hand me a prescription. DTC advertising is meant to inform patients of new options and encourage them to discuss them with their doctors. If your doctor is naive enough to hand you
Good point, Ian. If you look at the rep message boards these days, nobody talks about products anymore. It's all about lawsuits and how they're going to get their revenge on "The Man".
Older reps think the younger ones are a joke and the retired ones scratch their head like you. My dad
Holy cow, what's happened to this screwed up world? I've been a successful rep for over 25 years, been a manager, and never worked more than 30 hours a week...my golf index is 2 after resigning as a manager. Yes there's the occassional evening symposium and weekend, cupped with Mortons as one reader said, vacations,
I would rather have pharma influence than Obama's death panels or insurance companies deciding what medicines I should get and then grading my doc not on care but on cost.
Unemployed...not yet...soon Im sure...As a current rep Im not sure how I feel about all this. Lawsuits are causing companies millions and one of the reasons (although a small reason)we are all loosing our jobs. Forced now to look outside the industry you really realize how well reps ARE paid. No job is
The obvious question is, who is the target audience for this information?
Other doctors who have proven themselves to be largely indifferent to blatant conflicts of interest? E.g., how come COI questions are never asked by audience docs at video-recorded CME courses that are obviously gamed to specific drugs marketed by the Pharma sponsors of
Grateful, to be specific to your question, Ms Chambers' movie producers, the Mitchell Brothers tried to capitalize on her Ivory Snow popularity after she disclosed to them it was indeed her picture on the box of Ivory Snow detergent.
When Proctor and Gamble found about this they quickly dropped Chambers's picture from the ad and had
As disclosed in the following 2010 article by NY Times reporters Gardiner Harris and Natasha Singer, and based on my own observations, bribery of certain foreign governments is more or less the ante that pharma companies have to pay to gain access to ex US clinical investigative locations, and, per the article, some of this
My mother and I recently looked through an issue of Good Housekeeping magazine and counted 11 multi-page ads for prescription drugs. That's nearly 30 pages in just ONE magazine advertising prescription medications. I agree with the comments above that DTC advertising of pharmaceuticals should be BANNED altogether. Doctors, not TV ads, should
Perhaps require a few of the 'unfortunate' customers who have had serious irreversible side effects to note their personal experiences. If a fatal reaction has occurred a survivor could be used.
Whitney, I wish you luck trying to convince a matriculating college freshman to pursue a liberal arts degree these days. Interestingly, a recent survey of GenY liberal arts college grads finds the highest percentage lists their job as "owner". To me that means that they own their spot on the unemployment line since
There is an alternative for patients to ensure they are kept aware of drug interactions, adverse effects, etc. as addressed in this story.
Quintiles provides a free medication monitoring service www.MediGuard.org (specifically for side effects and drug interaction) which has been available since 2007.
Our site has more than 2.5 million registered users.
As a healthcare marketer, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
The benefits of the product need to be communicated in a way that is captivating, unique, and positive. That's marketing 101, regardless of whether you're promoting drugs or shoes. The FDA not only requires that an equal share of the ad
In regards to Roche's breast cancer drug getting FDA Priority Review. At the recent semi-annual meeting of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG), one of the attendees posted on ASCO Connection about his take on the meeting. He found himself considering the endpoints of clinical trials. Should it be the response rate? Should it be the
@Doc, many reps I know have MBA's from top tier universities, along with biology undergrad degrees. Many consultants at PWC I know were reps at one point and now specialize in the health care arena. The "communication" reps you refer to...you DO realize big consulting houses hire Psych majors. History majors.
JiM, pls clarify what you mean by "not a typical audience". I checked the demographics of the cohort, and in fact with respect to educational attainment the cohort is reflective of thhe USA. According to thre 2010 Census 25% of the American population has a high school education or less; in the study
Always a good read to start the day, Ed!
In case you missed it: http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-07/actavis-4-drugmakers-to-pay-25-2-mln-in-louisiana-settlement.html?cmpid=hooks
Speaking of babies, I believe in the adage that no publicity is bad publicity. Here's a blast from the past, a picture of 99 and 44/100ths pure Marilyn Chambers holding a baby on the cover of a box of Ivory Snow. When Chambers was later discovered to be a porn star, her ticket sales
I receive the norplant in 1992 my menses where continuous headaches while I had it and lost of hair, even now I'm still losing hair. I keep it the whole 4 years. I was in Louisiana lawsuit but I moved and lost contact. I would like to know who I need to contact to find
Alison Bass has just blogged about the specious Statute of Limitations dodge by ORI – see http://alison-bass.com/blog/2012/02/when-it-comes-to-scientific-misconduct-should-there-be-a-statute-of-limitations/
Ed:
Keeping in mind the language of the current campaign season, "corporations" are persons. As a person (who also happens ot be "a corporation"), I expect - and am expected - to be able to document/ justify every tax deduction. Of course I have never claimed an 8 figure refund either - which would
It really does not matter what you think. THe law says that if you are working extra hours not related to direct sales, then you get overtime. Everyone diserves to be home with their family, that is why we have the laws. Now a physician can write your drug all he wants and never
AZ has required their reps to basically read a prepared script off a tablet PC for years! Everything is scripted at AZ! We haven't been a "sales organization" for years. We put in many, many hours of overtime and we deserve!
I tend to agree with Ted. If risk info equally well understood, then I don't think we ought to try to regulate how "cute" the rest of the ad is.
This is not a typical audience. But personally, I find it only more surreal when the risk info is telling us about lymphomas, other
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