In the previous article, Ask Your Doctor: The Marketing of Drugs, I showed a video of former drug rep and now filmmaker Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau speaking from her insider knowledge of how the drug companies market their wares.
Marketing drugs is the major part of a drug company’s expenses, far ahead of research and development of new product. And on the frontline of the marketing is the drug rep.
There are about 700,000 practicing physicians in the U.S., and drug companies spend about $60,000 per doctor, for a total of $57 billion, promoting their drugs. The majority of that expense is for the drug reps.
The reps are doing a good job, in that 40% of all drugs produced in the world are being consumed in the U.S. – that’s why I said in a previous article that the U.S. is a Drugged Out Nation.
Sadly, there’s a down side to all that drug use – adverse drug reactions are the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.
And, because of all that pill popping, the U.S. ranks 24th in the world for life expectancy.
I thought today it would be best to hear from the drug reps themselves, or to learn more about how they work.
At the top of the page is a trailer from a film called Side Effects, which was directed by the above mentioned Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, the former drug rep turned filmmaker.
And below are a few videos:
1) A report on CNBC about how drug reps work.
2) A spoof of drug reps, from the TV show Scrubs.
3) A former drug rep who peddled the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa, talking about how they manipulated and hid information about the drug.
4) Gwen Olson, a former drug rep who wrote an expose about the drug industry, on how drug reps manipulate doctors.