5 ms·

> And no, the sales and marketing in that article is not advertising alone. It's mostly sales people who go and visit medical professionals to talk about their

> And no, the sales and marketing in that article is not advertising alone. It's mostly sales people who go and visit medical professionals to talk about their products. That's advertising. You mentioned 20% of their revenue is R&D - do you have a source, ideally listing what the other 80% goes to? That's a lot of unaccounted revenue, especially given how many drugs were shown to be dirt cheap to manufacture.

tclAmockingbird 10y ago
> > And no, the sales and marketing in that article is not advertising alone. It's mostly sales people who go and visit medical professionals to talk about their products. > That's advertising. It's also keeping physicians up to date on the current science, applicability, and best practices of their products. I think it's a good thing for sales reps and MSLs to inform or remind physicians that there are alternatives to writing a script for Epipens, for example. > You mentioned 20% of their revenue is R&D - do you have a source, ideally listing what the other 80% goes to? That's a lot of unaccounted revenue, especially given how many drugs were shown to be dirt cheap to manufacture. Many drugs are cheap to make, but that neglects the astronomical development and regulatory costs.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  FWIW the anecdotal experience of people I know in the health field in the US is that pharma sales reps know nothing about medicine, are hired for their sales / "relationship building" ability, and can't answer any question about the drug they are touting that can't be answered by looking at the brochure. Very disappointing. You can't expect to get unbiased, quality advice from someone with such a strong incentive. The right way for doctors to stay up to date is for doctors to stay up to date! They need to read a damn book or journal article once in a while and takes responsibility for their own professional development. If doctors aren't doing that, regulators need to suspend their licenses.
  - tclAmockingbird 10y ago
    > FWIW the anecdotal experience of people I know in the health field in the US is that pharma sales reps know nothing about medicine, are hired for their sales / "relationship building" ability, and can't answer any question about the drug they are touting that can't be answered by looking at the brochure. Very disappointing. MSLs have advanced degrees in medicine or biomedical research. It's preferred that the traditional sales reps now have bachelor's degrees in the sciences and it is expected that, within the narrow scope of their product's science, they be well-informed regardless of prior academic background. It's preferred because they are more effective reps. > You can't expect to get unbiased, quality advice from someone with such a strong incentive. The right way for doctors to stay up to date is for doctors to stay up to date! They need to read a damn book or journal article once in a while and takes responsibility for their own professional development. If doctors aren't doing that, regulators need to suspend their licenses. Continuing medical education is a requirement to maintain licensure. I don't think I get your point here.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Not everyone here is in the industry, what's an MSL?
      - tclAmockingbird 10y ago
        Medical Science Liaison
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      I don't what you're talking about. The pharmaceutical salesmen I've known were retrained coal miners without college degrees. You should never trust a salesmen to give you advice, because the advice inevitably is, "you need this thing I happen to be selling today."
      - tclAmockingbird 10y ago
        This sort of hostility is why I keep quitting this damned site. Thanks for reminding me.
- DarkKomunalec 10y ago
  > It's also keeping physicians up to date on the current science, applicability, and best practices of their products. I think it's a good thing for sales reps and MSLs to inform or remind physicians that there are alternatives to writing a script for Epipens, for example. There are many very cheap ways of keeping physicians up-to date, such as a conference presentation of the drug, followed by a Q&A session, with a recording freely available online. > Many drugs are cheap to make, but that neglects the astronomical development and regulatory costs. Which are covered in the already mentioned 20% that goes to R&D (source pending). Are you purposefully ignoring information you dislike?
  - dpark 10y ago
    > There are many very cheap ways of keeping physicians up-to date, such as a conference presentation of the drug, followed by a Q&A session, with a recording freely available online. Because most doctors are happy to spend hours watching recordings of drug presentations. For better or worse, doctors are just people and if you want them to understand the benefits of your new drug, it will fall to you to convince them. Most doctors are not going to thoroughly study every new drug.
    - evgen 10y ago
      > Because most doctors are happy to spend hours watching recordings of drug presentations. And yet somehow I am supposed to be overjoyed at spending hours watching conference talks, reading blog posts and documentation, and doing other things to evaluate new tech and learn new languages/libraries that are not my direct job just to keep up to date on my rapidly-changing industry? Welcome to the 21st century doctors. I would unpack and play the worlds tiniest violin for you, but I have a few more confreaks youtube videos to plough through right now.
      - dpark 10y ago
        I'm kind of impressed that you managed to turn this into an opportunity to whine about your own continuing education. Also, just FYI doctors already have to do continuing education to maintain a license, which cuts into the time they can spend researching new drugs.
- John23832 10y ago
  AWS keeps me up to date with their products and best practices too... It's still advertising.
- drugpusher 10y ago
  Hah. I've actually spent months of my life working with drug reps - including going with them on doctor's visits. They will get five minutes max to go through their spiel, and they are very focused on selling the specific uses or differences to get doctors to switch. What is also amazing is that it is easy to get doctor level data on your drugs market share in their prescription patterns. So you can target very effectively. Then it's all discipline of frequency and hitting the right docs. Why do you think so many drug reps are blonde girls? Because the doctors will make time to see 'em. And what is doubly amazing is how effective this brute force sales technique is. I have graphs of visit frequency vs market share and it is DEADLY effective if you get it right. (Of course there are diminishing returns. Drug reps will game their visit stats by overvisiting friendly docs. So you can't give them credit for those visits.) Source: I'm a healthcare sales management consultant
xadhominemx 10y ago
you're speaking very authoritatively for someone who apparently does not know the difference between sales, marketing, and advertising and also does not know how to pull basic financial information of publicly-traded companies
- DarkKomunalec 10y ago
  What a great opportunity for you to pull this so easily available and understandable information, and destroy my entire argument by showing how efficiently pharma allocates revenue to important drug research, and how little is wasted on marketing, sales, generics, and other stuff!
brandonmenc 10y ago
> That's advertising. Anecdotally, a friend of mine was doing post-doctoral work researching and developing cancer drugs. He now works on a pharmaceutical sales team as a scientific liaison. "Advertising" a drug involves a lot more than running TV commercials - it also includes former scientists making the current research digestible for doctors who don't have the time or specialized knowledge to do that in between seeing patients. The notion that every practicing doctor has enough free time - or is even smart enough - to keep up on the latest pharmaceuticals, is ridiculous.
- Retric 10y ago
  There are only ~50 new drugs a year, and many of those are highly specialized. So, it's really not hard to keep up with new drugs. The hard part is actually staying fresh on all the existing knowledge that you don't use regularly and some changes to best practices.
  - refurb 10y ago
    You realize that new data comes out on drugs constantly? Even drugs launched 10 years ago. Just take a look at all the medical journals. It's not a one-and-done thing with learning about drugs.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Yes, but again it's not about "keeping up on the latest pharmaceuticals" that's small chunk of time. The changing landscape of existing drugs that have been out for 2+ years is much larger than the number of 'new' drugs. Look into AIDS medications for example and pills are often a mix of 2+ existing drugs that work well together. And again, GP's rarely have to worry about the new Cancer drugs etc.
- dikdik 10y ago
  >The notion that every practicing doctor has enough free time - or is even smart enough - to keep up on the latest pharmaceuticals, is ridiculous. That's part of the doctor's job, if they can't keep up with new medical/pharma literature then they need to find a different job. Further, most doctors know taking a ton of info from a pharma rep is just asking to be misinformed. A lot of pharma sales reps have no science background and many lie about approved populations and other aspects of a drug (just see the many, many lawsuits out there).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

tclAmockingbird 10y ago

> > And no, the sales and marketing in that article is not advertising alone. It's mostly sales people who go and visit medical professionals to talk about their products. > That's advertising. It's also keeping physicians up to date on the current science, applicability, and best practices of their products. I think it's a good thing for sales reps and MSLs to inform or remind physicians that there are alternatives to writing a script for Epipens, for example. > You mentioned 20% of their revenue is R&D - do you have a source, ideally listing what the other 80% goes to? That's a lot of unaccounted revenue, especially given how many drugs were shown to be dirt cheap to manufacture. Many drugs are cheap to make, but that neglects the astronomical development and regulatory costs.

galdosdi 10y ago
FWIW the anecdotal experience of people I know in the health field in the US is that pharma sales reps know nothing about medicine, are hired for their sales / "relationship building" ability, and can't answer any question about the drug they are touting that can't be answered by looking at the brochure. Very disappointing. You can't expect to get unbiased, quality advice from someone with such a strong incentive. The right way for doctors to stay up to date is for doctors to stay up to date! They need to read a damn book or journal article once in a while and takes responsibility for their own professional development. If doctors aren't doing that, regulators need to suspend their licenses.
- tclAmockingbird 10y ago
  > FWIW the anecdotal experience of people I know in the health field in the US is that pharma sales reps know nothing about medicine, are hired for their sales / "relationship building" ability, and can't answer any question about the drug they are touting that can't be answered by looking at the brochure. Very disappointing. MSLs have advanced degrees in medicine or biomedical research. It's preferred that the traditional sales reps now have bachelor's degrees in the sciences and it is expected that, within the narrow scope of their product's science, they be well-informed regardless of prior academic background. It's preferred because they are more effective reps. > You can't expect to get unbiased, quality advice from someone with such a strong incentive. The right way for doctors to stay up to date is for doctors to stay up to date! They need to read a damn book or journal article once in a while and takes responsibility for their own professional development. If doctors aren't doing that, regulators need to suspend their licenses. Continuing medical education is a requirement to maintain licensure. I don't think I get your point here.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Not everyone here is in the industry, what's an MSL?
    - tclAmockingbird 10y ago
      Medical Science Liaison
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    I don't what you're talking about. The pharmaceutical salesmen I've known were retrained coal miners without college degrees. You should never trust a salesmen to give you advice, because the advice inevitably is, "you need this thing I happen to be selling today."
    - tclAmockingbird 10y ago
      This sort of hostility is why I keep quitting this damned site. Thanks for reminding me.
DarkKomunalec 10y ago
> It's also keeping physicians up to date on the current science, applicability, and best practices of their products. I think it's a good thing for sales reps and MSLs to inform or remind physicians that there are alternatives to writing a script for Epipens, for example. There are many very cheap ways of keeping physicians up-to date, such as a conference presentation of the drug, followed by a Q&A session, with a recording freely available online. > Many drugs are cheap to make, but that neglects the astronomical development and regulatory costs. Which are covered in the already mentioned 20% that goes to R&D (source pending). Are you purposefully ignoring information you dislike?
- dpark 10y ago
  > There are many very cheap ways of keeping physicians up-to date, such as a conference presentation of the drug, followed by a Q&A session, with a recording freely available online. Because most doctors are happy to spend hours watching recordings of drug presentations. For better or worse, doctors are just people and if you want them to understand the benefits of your new drug, it will fall to you to convince them. Most doctors are not going to thoroughly study every new drug.
  - evgen 10y ago
    > Because most doctors are happy to spend hours watching recordings of drug presentations. And yet somehow I am supposed to be overjoyed at spending hours watching conference talks, reading blog posts and documentation, and doing other things to evaluate new tech and learn new languages/libraries that are not my direct job just to keep up to date on my rapidly-changing industry? Welcome to the 21st century doctors. I would unpack and play the worlds tiniest violin for you, but I have a few more confreaks youtube videos to plough through right now.
    - dpark 10y ago
      I'm kind of impressed that you managed to turn this into an opportunity to whine about your own continuing education. Also, just FYI doctors already have to do continuing education to maintain a license, which cuts into the time they can spend researching new drugs.
John23832 10y ago
AWS keeps me up to date with their products and best practices too... It's still advertising.
drugpusher 10y ago
Hah. I've actually spent months of my life working with drug reps - including going with them on doctor's visits. They will get five minutes max to go through their spiel, and they are very focused on selling the specific uses or differences to get doctors to switch. What is also amazing is that it is easy to get doctor level data on your drugs market share in their prescription patterns. So you can target very effectively. Then it's all discipline of frequency and hitting the right docs. Why do you think so many drug reps are blonde girls? Because the doctors will make time to see 'em. And what is doubly amazing is how effective this brute force sales technique is. I have graphs of visit frequency vs market share and it is DEADLY effective if you get it right. (Of course there are diminishing returns. Drug reps will game their visit stats by overvisiting friendly docs. So you can't give them credit for those visits.) Source: I'm a healthcare sales management consultant

xadhominemx 10y ago

you're speaking very authoritatively for someone who apparently does not know the difference between sales, marketing, and advertising and also does not know how to pull basic financial information of publicly-traded companies

DarkKomunalec 10y ago
What a great opportunity for you to pull this so easily available and understandable information, and destroy my entire argument by showing how efficiently pharma allocates revenue to important drug research, and how little is wasted on marketing, sales, generics, and other stuff!

brandonmenc 10y ago

> That's advertising. Anecdotally, a friend of mine was doing post-doctoral work researching and developing cancer drugs. He now works on a pharmaceutical sales team as a scientific liaison. "Advertising" a drug involves a lot more than running TV commercials - it also includes former scientists making the current research digestible for doctors who don't have the time or specialized knowledge to do that in between seeing patients. The notion that every practicing doctor has enough free time - or is even smart enough - to keep up on the latest pharmaceuticals, is ridiculous.

Retric 10y ago
There are only ~50 new drugs a year, and many of those are highly specialized. So, it's really not hard to keep up with new drugs. The hard part is actually staying fresh on all the existing knowledge that you don't use regularly and some changes to best practices.
- refurb 10y ago
  You realize that new data comes out on drugs constantly? Even drugs launched 10 years ago. Just take a look at all the medical journals. It's not a one-and-done thing with learning about drugs.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Yes, but again it's not about "keeping up on the latest pharmaceuticals" that's small chunk of time. The changing landscape of existing drugs that have been out for 2+ years is much larger than the number of 'new' drugs. Look into AIDS medications for example and pills are often a mix of 2+ existing drugs that work well together. And again, GP's rarely have to worry about the new Cancer drugs etc.
dikdik 10y ago
>The notion that every practicing doctor has enough free time - or is even smart enough - to keep up on the latest pharmaceuticals, is ridiculous. That's part of the doctor's job, if they can't keep up with new medical/pharma literature then they need to find a different job. Further, most doctors know taking a ton of info from a pharma rep is just asking to be misinformed. A lot of pharma sales reps have no science background and many lie about approved populations and other aspects of a drug (just see the many, many lawsuits out there).

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]