The cost of pushing pills: A new estimate of pharmaceutical promotion expenditures in the United States

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Public release date: 2-Jan-2008

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/plos-dis010208.php

Contact: Hyde

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Public Library of Science

Drug industry spends nearly twice as much on marketing than on research

and development

The pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on the marketing

and promotion of drugs than on research and development, according to a

new analysis in this week's PLoS Medicine.

In their analysis of data from two market research companies, IMS and

CAM, Marc-André Gagnon and Lexchin (York University, Toronto,

Canada) found that US drug companies spent US$57.5 billion on

promotional activities in 2004, the latest year for which figures were

available.

In comparison, the National Science Foundation reported that in 2004 the

amount of industrial pharmaceutical research and development (including

public funds for industrial research and development) was US$31.5

billion in the United States.

For the last 50 years, say the authors, there has been an ongoing debate

as to which image of the drug industry is most accurate. The industry

promotes a vision of itself, say the authors, as " research-driven,

innovative, and life-saving, " but the industry's critics contend that

the drug industry is based on " market-driven profiteering. "

The findings of their study, say Gagnon and Lexchin, " confirms the

public image of a marketing-driven industry and provides an important

argument to petition in favor of transforming the workings of the

industry in the direction of more research and less promotion. "

The types of promotion that were included in the US$57.5 billion figure

included free samples, visits from drug reps ( " detailers " ), direct to

consumer advertising of drugs, meetings with doctors to promote

products, e-mail promotions, direct mail, and clinical trials designed

to promote the prescription of new drugs rather than to generate

scientific data (these are known as " seeding trials " ).

The authors believe that their figure of US$57.5 billion is likely to be

an underestimate. " There are other avenues for promotion that would not

be captured by either IMS or CAM,” they say. These avenues include the

ghostwriting of articles in medical journals by drug company employees,

or the off-label promotion of drugs.

Citation: Gagnon MA, Lexchin J (2008) The cost of pushing pills: A new

estimate of pharmaceutical promotion expenditures in the United States.

PLoS Med 5(1): e1.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document & doi=10.1371/jour\

nal.pmed.0050001

CONTACT:

-Lou Schagena

Media Relations Officer

York University

4700 Keele Street

Toronto, ON M3J 1P3

Canada

+1 , ext. 22686 (tel)

+1 (fax)

schagena@...