Posted by JLM on June 12, 2003, at 4:51:34
In reply to Re: Abilify (aripiprazole) cost is PROHIBITIVE! » Rhiannonpa, posted by JLM on June 12, 2003, at 3:56:27
By the way, don't forget to visit:
http://pharmawatch.blogspot.com
Run by a doctor from Austrailia. One big pharma horrowshow after another. I'll give ya tidbit, cuz I know you'll like it ;)
"Monday, May 19, 2003 :::
What do doctors think of drug reps these days?
?The vast majority of physicians perceive today's sales reps to be younger, less experienced, more aggressive, less collegial, and more focused on sales as opposed to science. Reps are perceived as mostly interested in "pitching" their products and dropping off samples to promote physician use, while physicians are really looking for timely information they can trust and find credible.
Accel's findings include the fact that sixty-three percent (63%) of MDs would rarely meet with pharmaceutical sales representatives if they stopped distributing samples during their visits, and that nearly 70% of MDs perceive information provided by sales representatives to be "very unbalanced." The report confirms that the field force build-up of the last few years has added significant stress to the dynamic of the physician-sales representative relationship.
Remarks from the survey participants crystallize their current perceptions of sales representatives. They include:
· "There are not as many career or seasoned reps as before; many are now young kids who are marketers-not pharmacists, researchers, nurses, or dieticians like I used to see."
· "We see more "pressure sales tactics," more competitive, younger, and less experienced reps - and frequent turnover."
· "Reps are becoming "walking sample delivery devices."
I wonder what doctors think of drug reps using pressure sales tactics on to deliver political messages? Pfizer is using its reps as political lobbyists, getting them to ask doctors to send misleading letters to their senator about drug pricing reform:
"Pfizer has been working against a bill in Olympia by using its force of more than 160 in-state sales representatives who visit doctors' offices. The reps have been given company "talking points" to sway physicians, and have been handing out a "sample letter" for physicians to sign and send directly to their state senators.
The letter starts out, "Dear Senator, I am a licensed practicing physician and I oppose (the bill)." It says legislation would interfere with physicians' freedom to prescribe what is best for a patient, and it leaves room for a signature at the bottom. Nowhere does it say it is written by a lobbyist.
Dr. Michael Stephens, a family physician in Spokane, said he refused to sign the letter because he studied the issue and considered the letter misleading.
"It just strikes me as another example of how the pharmaceutical companies will do anything they can to protect their interests," Stephens said.
Pfizer lobbyist Kristina Hermach, who wrote the letter, said the tactics are legal. She added that drug companies need to use their sales forces as "grass-roots networks" to counteract notions that would make drug companies "the scapegoats for all the world's problems."
They're certainly a problem in this part of the world. Australia is under political pressure from US trade negotiators to cough up an extra $22 per prescription, because US drug companies think we?re not paying enough:
"US drug companies claim that Australia's world-leading PBS is costing them around $1 billion a year," Dr Hamilton said.
Prices could rise by 90 per cent for non-concession card holders and 104 per cent for concession card holders, he said.
They obviously need that extra $1billion dollars to sponsor more football and baseball stars to promote their lifesaving drugs for impotent men:
In the rush for the U.S. market, drug companies have determined sports properties are one of the best promotional vehicles. Viagra already has NASCAR and Major League Baseball locked up, and now GlaxoSmithKline plc and Bayer AG have inked a multi-year, multimillion-dollar deal with the National Football League to help launch their erectile-dysfunction drug, Levitra.
The NFL just two months ago announced it was lifting a ban on sponsorships by pharmaceutical companies; it was the last of the four major professional U.S. sports leagues to allow such alliances. The rush was on immediately for the NFL's strong male demographics, sports marketers said.
"The NFL is a marketing monster," said Milton Thompson, president of Grand Slam Cos., a local sports-marketing firm.
"If a product like [Levitra] can get the endorsement of a testosterone-driven league like the NFL or a coach or athlete involved in the league, that would really hit home with this drug's target market,"
Though officials for London-based GlaxoSmithKline and Germany-based Bayer are saying little, sources familiar with the deal said it involves more than $5 million a year in rights fees, with media spending on league broadcasts to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
They also need our billions to pay the lawyers who are defending them against a tidal wave of litigation. I don't think this is because the drug companies sell shonky drugs, probably more to do with the way they aggressively and prematurely market new drugs before there is a chance to see what the side effects really are:
"In addition to the 8,700 people who have sued Pfizer, the world's largest drug company, over Rezulin, an additional 32,000 people have said that they may sue, giving notice to avoid missing the opportunity to eventually file such claims.
Wyeth, another big drug company, has already set aside $14 billion since 1997 for claims by people who say they were injured by its diet drugs, and the company has been informed by an additional 90,000 people that they may sue. Johnson & Johnson and Bayer have also been been named in thousands of suits. Drugs from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Merck have also been named in lawsuits. A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's trade group, declined to comment on the wave of lawsuits.
With hundreds of thousands of people claiming that they have been injured by dangerous medicines and deserve compensation, the drug makers say that they are now spending several billion dollars each year to defend themselves from lawsuits and settle claims.
Stop Press: Here's what you could buy with the GlaxoSmithKline's $50 million retirement payout for Jean Paul Garnier:
5,890 primary or 4,531 secondary school places
1,375 extra newly qualified nurses for a year
1,022 additional teachers in inner London, or 1,215 elsewhere in England and Wales, for a year
2 years' training with the Metropolitan Police for 314 officers
1 taxi from London to the Sun (traffic permitting)
Why do drug companies pay so much for these idiots? What do they do to earn it? Stuff like this:
"When Mr. Dolan was named chief executive in February 2001, he promised that he would double the company's sales and earnings within five years. But sales in 2002, his first full year in charge, were $18.1 billion, down 1 percent from 2000, the year before he was appointed. Under his direction, the company's shares have plunged 57 percent, to $25.82. Many of its once top-selling drugs, like Taxol for cancer, Glucophage for diabetes and BuSpar for anxiety, are suffering cutthroat competition from less expensive generic versions. Its laboratories have not discovered a breakthrough since tie-dyed shirts and bell-bottom pants were fashionable. Its big sellers ? Pravachol and the stroke medicine Plavix ? are licensed from other companies.
Almost every major strategic decision Mr. Dolan has made has backfired: he negotiated a $2 billion deal in 2001 with ImClone Systems that became part of a scandal and led to a write-down of nearly all of Bristol-Myers's investment in that company. He bought DuPont's aging drug business in 2001 for $2 billion more than the nearest competitor, according to people involved in the bidding. He broke off a marketing agreement with Novartis of Switzerland to jointly sell an irritable-bowel-syndrome drug when it appeared that the drug would not be approved. But the drug, Zelnorm, is now on the market, with modest and growing sales. And he revised his company's earnings estimates at least five times last year. And now federal law enforcement authorities are investigating him.
Many analysts say they do not understand why Mr. Dolan still has his job. Numerous employees and former employees, including some of the most senior people in the company, are asking the same question."All with links to articles in major publications like Reuters, the New York Times, the British Medical Journal, ad nauseum.
poster:JLM
thread:129761
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030609/msgs/233370.html