Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Pharma Advertising Not Effective - Aw Shucks!

At a time when pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars on advertising drugs to consumers directly, a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), finds that such advertising doesn't garner enough returns.

The magnitude direct-to-consumer advertising is huge, for instance in 2005 itself the pharmaceutical industry spent over US$ 4 billion on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. However, the results of the study by Harvard Medical School raises serious questions about its efficacy.

“There wasn't an ounce of effect for a drug for arthritis, and a drug for allergies,” felt the Harvard Medical School professor Stephen Soumerai and one of the authors of the study. Oops! If you thought advertising was easy for the medical industry think again.

They carried out this study on three well advertised drugs Etanercept (meant for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Mometasone furoate (an anti-allergic drug) and Tegaserod used to treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Lasting a good five years, the research compared the prescription habits of French Canadians, 95% of whom don't watch US Television, with the prescription habits Canadians residing in English dominant regions, who do watch TV programs aired from the US.

So does it mean that pharmaceutical companies shouldn't advertise direct to consumers? Perhaps it depends on what they advertise, because when it comes to arthritis and allergy medications, consumers have a lot of options. And when there are so many competitors trying to out pace each other, then there's a higher probability of an advertiser's pitch getting lost in the noise.

However, experts also feel that direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising does fare well when it's about new and innovative drug treatments.

There's also a funny aspect to drug advertising, and that's recounting of the side effects. By the time the main pitch has moved the audience, the narration of side effects causes the persuasive message to lose steam.

On another front, it seems that Heart Surgery is a big risk for doctors too.

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