Daniel Carlat: “From his point of view, it is $40 million lost from the pockets of a niche food business. But from the consumer’s point of view it reminds us of the enormous scale of the pharmaceutical marketing endeavor. The drug industry was once considered an important engine of research and development. But the dirty little secret is that pharmaceutical companies spend more on promotion than on research–much more.”
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I’d focus on the bigger picture – the enormous sums advertising prescription drugs, not to the physicians who would prescribe, but to the potential addicts aka patients who demand. I’d say the amounts spent on drug lunches pale in comparison to the sums spent on plastering adverts on city buses. Just saying …
How about the sticky pad industry?
How about the people who are being paid to come up with unusual pen designs, including that cool Levitra pen.
http://tinyurl.com/44w9yz
Banning drug marketing could bring the American economy to a grinding halt.
What will happen to the US economy if we pull its Prozac?
I’m still jealous of the mardi-gras lunch they had that one time at my rheumatologist’s office. Forlorn I waited for my turn to be seen. Snappily dressed pharma kids rolled by carts full of shiny beads and gleaming streamers..swag and toys and every good thing. And sammiches. And quite a few other yummy delights, really spiffy Mardi-gras salads and desserts etc.
I got a paper gown, and no invitation at all. I can’t remember the drug they were pushing. It was an informational Mardi Gras lunch. I hope they learned a great deal how to stop my having to come in there and sit in a paper gown.
There was a lot of purple, though, so I’m thinking it was a reformulated proton-pump inhibitor ( patent-buster.)
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