3 ms·

Surely though the best marketing is the effectiveness of the product, if it's a good product then doctors will prescribe it. I don't know if it's true or not,

Surely though the best marketing is the effectiveness of the product, if it's a good product then doctors will prescribe it. I don't know if it's true or not, but looking at US movies/tv shows it seems like everyones taking medication which I doubt they actually need. Here I don't know very many people who actively take regular medication, I know that people who move here complain at how doctors are stingy with prescriptions, yet life expectancy is longer than the US.

refurb 8y ago
Surely though the best marketing is the effectiveness of the product, if it's a good product then doctors will prescribe it. That's true for very few physicians. The ones that are leaders in their field and do research know the ins and outs of new drugs, but your average doctor knows very little.
- disordinary 8y ago
  But, they all have access to knowledge bases and information and guidelines provided by the government.
  - refurb 8y ago
    That is true, but setting aside time to do research is a much bigger hurdle than taking 10-15 min to listen to someone give you the highlights. And in case anyone was wondering, doctors are very skeptical of drug reps and always verify anything they say before believing it. But it gives them a starting point.
    - stinkbug 8y ago
      "always verify". Well that's obviously not a true statement but (not singling you out) I wonder why there is such a compulsion to defend the honor, as it were, of medical doctors. It's not exactly the same as pharma, but in the medical device field salespeople are commonly in operating theatres. Clearly the surgeons doing this do not have time to "verify" what they are being told. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-is-that-salesperson-in-the-operating-room-for-your-knee-replacement/2016/11/14/ab8172fa-78e6-11e6-beac-57a4a412e93a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-i... Americans would do well to stop idolizing doctors and realize that huge numbers of them are lazy, incompetent shills who routinely do a lot of preventable damage.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Surely though the best marketing is the effectiveness of the product, if it's a good product then doctors will prescribe it. Let's take this from the other side. Suppose we prohibit the marketing. Now you have to amortize $50M in R&D over 40,000 patients instead of 200,000. So a course of treatment can't cost $1000, it has to be more than that. Cutting out the marketing expense makes the price per patient go up.
- disordinary 8y ago
  But then those 160,000 other patients are either getting medication that they don't need or are getting medication which is inferior to something else which they should have gotten but has inferior advertising. I'd rather pay more and either only use the medication when I need it, or get the most effective medication. One of the reasons why the US spends so much more than the rest of the world is because of the share amount of prescription drugs that people have. Here it's extremely hard to convince a Dr that anything other than paracetamol and rest is required for most ailments, yet life expectancy is higher than in the US.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > But then those 160,000 other patients are either getting medication that they don't need or are getting medication which is inferior to something else which they should have gotten but has inferior advertising. Yes, if the advertising is total bullocks that is what happens. But getting rid of the advertising still doesn't make the price of the drug go down for the people who actually need it. And it's at least theoretically possible for the advertising to help patients who otherwise wouldn't have known about the drug, e.g. because they asked a doctor about it years ago and there was no treatment then even though there is one now.
    - stinkbug 8y ago
      Yes of course the advertisements are total bollocks. That is the claim. You are making these very strident back-of-the-envelope "economics" arguments without realizing that the economic ideal for the health care industry is to provide therapies that make people sicker, thereby ensuring their return for more therapies.
stinkbug 8y ago
Why on Earth would this get down voted?

refurb 8y ago

Surely though the best marketing is the effectiveness of the product, if it's a good product then doctors will prescribe it. That's true for very few physicians. The ones that are leaders in their field and do research know the ins and outs of new drugs, but your average doctor knows very little.

disordinary 8y ago
But, they all have access to knowledge bases and information and guidelines provided by the government.
- refurb 8y ago
  That is true, but setting aside time to do research is a much bigger hurdle than taking 10-15 min to listen to someone give you the highlights. And in case anyone was wondering, doctors are very skeptical of drug reps and always verify anything they say before believing it. But it gives them a starting point.
  - stinkbug 8y ago
    "always verify". Well that's obviously not a true statement but (not singling you out) I wonder why there is such a compulsion to defend the honor, as it were, of medical doctors. It's not exactly the same as pharma, but in the medical device field salespeople are commonly in operating theatres. Clearly the surgeons doing this do not have time to "verify" what they are being told. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-is-that-salesperson-in-the-operating-room-for-your-knee-replacement/2016/11/14/ab8172fa-78e6-11e6-beac-57a4a412e93a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-i... Americans would do well to stop idolizing doctors and realize that huge numbers of them are lazy, incompetent shills who routinely do a lot of preventable damage.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> Surely though the best marketing is the effectiveness of the product, if it's a good product then doctors will prescribe it. Let's take this from the other side. Suppose we prohibit the marketing. Now you have to amortize $50M in R&D over 40,000 patients instead of 200,000. So a course of treatment can't cost $1000, it has to be more than that. Cutting out the marketing expense makes the price per patient go up.

disordinary 8y ago
But then those 160,000 other patients are either getting medication that they don't need or are getting medication which is inferior to something else which they should have gotten but has inferior advertising. I'd rather pay more and either only use the medication when I need it, or get the most effective medication. One of the reasons why the US spends so much more than the rest of the world is because of the share amount of prescription drugs that people have. Here it's extremely hard to convince a Dr that anything other than paracetamol and rest is required for most ailments, yet life expectancy is higher than in the US.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > But then those 160,000 other patients are either getting medication that they don't need or are getting medication which is inferior to something else which they should have gotten but has inferior advertising. Yes, if the advertising is total bullocks that is what happens. But getting rid of the advertising still doesn't make the price of the drug go down for the people who actually need it. And it's at least theoretically possible for the advertising to help patients who otherwise wouldn't have known about the drug, e.g. because they asked a doctor about it years ago and there was no treatment then even though there is one now.
  - stinkbug 8y ago
    Yes of course the advertisements are total bollocks. That is the claim. You are making these very strident back-of-the-envelope "economics" arguments without realizing that the economic ideal for the health care industry is to provide therapies that make people sicker, thereby ensuring their return for more therapies.

stinkbug 8y ago

Why on Earth would this get down voted?