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Per my first paragraph, I was commenting on your first paragraph about "competition" (or lack of it), I agreed about marketing not being a zero sum game. My po
by beagle3 9y ago
Per my first paragraph, I was commenting on your first paragraph about "competition" (or lack of it), I agreed about marketing not being a zero sum game.
My point is that marketing expenses are far from just informative - e.g., in the case of Acthar and Epipen, they go towards convincing doctors and policy makers that a specific brand is superior or magical, when no such evidence exists; and it is my opinion (which would take me forever to find the facts for, I admit) is that a significant part of the marketing budget, perhaps upward of 50%, goes to such deceitful practices; another one that comes to mind is Oxycontin[0], which was marketed deceitfully, and is a major contributor to the opioid epidemic.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/11/17001926/oxycontin-purdue-opioid-drug-marketing-doctors https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/11/17001926/oxycontin-purdue...
- tptacek 9y agoThe examples you're citing are all cases of abuses that occurred due to lack of competition, so I am completely lost as to what you're trying to argue here. I just have a very simple point to make about pharma marketing costs. It was not my argument that there aren't abusive pharma companies; clearly, there are.
- beagle3 9y agoacthar, epipen and even oxycontin have $10 competitors which have been shown to be at least as good for their use cases. The belief that they do not (which is encoded into some medical recommendations and public policy) is a testament to how effective that marketing is. In fact, oxycontins claim to fame is its uniqueness in how long it acts for and therefore reduced addiction potential, which does not actually work this way. The “non competition” belief is itself a marketed reality for many drugs.