3 Sneaky, Dangerous New Ways Pharma Is Churning Profits

[madokie]

If you are like most people, you have been watching "Ask Your Doctor" drug ads on TV for years. The ads, called direct-to-consumer drug advertising, have done two amazing things. They have made drugs like Claritin, Lipitor and the "Purple Pill" financial blockbusters—and they have, to a certain extent, "sold" the conditions behind them.

While the conditions these drugs treat—like seasonal allergies, GERD, high cholesterol, depression, bipolar disorder, adult ADHD, erectile dysfunction, Low T, irritable bowel syndrome, dry eye and insomnia—certainly exist, awareness of the conditions has greatly increased thanks to drug ads. In fact the parade of symptoms viewers may suffer is so over the top that comedian Chris Rock said he was ready to hear a TV ad asking, “Do you fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning? You may be suffering from….”

For many years, consumer drug advertising made Big Pharma Fortune 500's "most profitable industry. But now, the profit party is largely over, with blockbusters like Prozac, Lipitor, Viagra, Zyprexa, Symbicort and Nexium off patent and nothing much in the pipelines.

WebMD, one of the strongest online pill merchandisers , dismissed 250 employees a year and a half ago and medical journals are noticeably page light with fewer ads. Once booming companies are now seeking mergers commensurate with the Wall Street aphorism that in boom times companies spin off and in bust times they merge

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. The USA is one of only two countries in the world...

where direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription medications is legal. (The other is New Zealand.) Everywhere else? It's banned. Prescription drugs may be advertised in professional journals for healthcare professionals, but not in mass market magazines, newspapers, TV or radio.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Thank you. nt

[Ilsa]

3. And they are usually the longest ads, too.

Some of them go on for a full minute, if not longer.

[glinda]

4. Sat next to a Pharma guy yesterday at

my dad's Assisted Living "visitors luncheon". He was well tanned with the most beautiful teeth and talking on and on about all the vacations he and his wife have had. He told me how against Single Payer he was and quick to point out the Immigrants take up our money for health care. How we could balance mining that is killing the Boundary Waters was the final straw and I almost smacked him alongside the head. Very secretive exactly about what he did but most likely a Drug Pusher sales rep. Very glad when the luncheon was over and I didn't have to sit next to him anymore.