Several blogs discussed this issue yesterday – TANSTAAFL, Drug Sales Visits Affect Doctors Little- U.S. Study, and So, Now Drug Reps Don’t Work?

So maybe we should understand the study – Drug Sales Visits Affect Doctors Little — US Study

But a 2-year study of 74,000 doctors showed a single visit had very little effect on whether they would prescribe a certain drug, and sometimes even multiple visits had little effect.

Robert Jacobson, a professor of marketing at the University of Washington Business School and colleagues at Columbia University in New York found that in fact, the visits could be counterproductive.

Doctors rely more heavily on medical journal reports on drugs, he said, and on practice guidelines issued by various professional groups.

“Many physicians are skeptical of or hold negative attitudes toward sales representatives,” said Jacobson, whose findings are published in the December issue of Management Science.

“Physicians recognize that information presented is biased toward the promoted drug and is unlikely to be objective or even accurate,” he added in a statement.

“Thus, physicians often discount information received from a sales representative. As physicians have access to alternative sources of information, which are more highly regarded, it is no wonder that the salesperson’s influence is minimal.”

For the study the researchers analyzed data for three widely prescribed drugs.

They assessed the effects of the numbers of sales calls and free samples on how many new prescriptions each of the 74,000 doctors wrote.

For one top-selling drug, which was not named, it would take three additional visits by a pharmaceutical sales representative to induce one new prescription, Jacobson’s study found.

It would take 26 additional free samples to induce the average doctor to write one new prescription, they determined.

If you believe that the pharmaceutical companies do not understand this issue, then you are naive and just fell off the turnip truck. What this study does not measure is the long term multiplier effect?

Given the profit margin in trade name pharmaceuticals, small changes multiply profits. Influence rarely shows dramatic effects. Rather the effects are subtle in the short turn, but significant in the long run.

The pharmaceutical companies understand the influence that their reps have. They are fighting for market share and trying to hit the occasional home run. Repeated exposure to their drug does influence us over time.

Perhaps some physicians are more resistant to influence than others. Some physicians read the literature more carefully, and make their decisions independently. But Abraham Lincoln said it best many years ago –

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

The pharmaceutical companies just want to fool some of the physicians some of the time and more recently some of the patients much of the time (DTC advertising). They understand that detailing is imperfect – but they also understand that it does influence. That is why I refuse to meet with drug reps.

So I am not convinced that this study is titled correctly. Drug reps do influence physicians. The magnitude is not the issue. The authors collected interesting data, but their interpretation is (IMHO) faulty.

Related posts:

1. Shortened visits – more on the suits
2. Why must maintain an arm length relationship with the pharmaceutical industry
3. Arguing over pharmaceutical marketing
4. RW takes a contrary view on pharmaceutical detailing
5. How do patients define quality physicians?

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.