Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
populist belief is that these fi rms try to gain fi nancial benefi t from the misery of
diseased people. Several shocks to its confi dence have not helped the image of the
industry. Think about withdrawals of drugs such as Vioxx, which displayed the
unethical behavior of fi rms in their sales messaging. Also the tactics of fi rms when
threatened by generics have been scrutinized by the public, especially the ethically
questionable practices, such as “evergreening” (milking a patent life cycle by
extending it through dubious “innovations”), cornering the supply of the active
ingredient, bribing the generic company not to supply generics, and suing generic
makers over dubious patents. Much of the pharmaceutical industry was investigated
by the European Commission over such practices, and class action law suits have
been fi led (e.g., consider AstraZeneza's marketing practices in the PPI category, in
which its two drugs, (Pri)Losec and Nexium, are now being challenged by both
regulators and consumers).
The weaker corporate image of the pharmaceutical industry is in desperate need
of repair. Rather than focusing on the short-term, the pharmaceutical industry needs
to develop long-term policies to maintain long-term trust of the population. In the
words of Singh and Jayanti later in this topic, the industry needs to transition from
a logic of confl ict (with payer, patient, or healthcare provider) to a logic of coopera-
tion, to align itself in a win-win cooperation with the entire healthcare value chain.
1.2.5
The Pharmaceutical Industry Needs to Rethink
its Policies Towards Sales Representatives
Multiple changes challenge the common way of detailing for pharmaceutical fi rms.
First, with decreased margins, less money is available to be spent on sales represen-
tatives. This seems to fi nally be a trigger for rethinking the arms race in detailing
that has been going on between major pharmaceutical players. Second, more and
more healthcare providers are turning their backs on pharmaceutical sales represen-
tatives for behaving unethically in the past. Sales representatives' infl uence on pre-
scription behavior is less and less socially tolerated. With fewer product introductions,
less news is informative enough to warrant time investment by the healthcare pro-
vider to listen to a sales representative. Third, technology has entered into the detail-
ing visit. Sales teams use iPads to present their pitches to doctors, and the virtual
detailing visit (i.e., a detailing call over an electronic connection) is making its entry
as well. Moreover, an increasing number of doctors network online, increasing the
need for information provision by manufacturers on such online platforms.
Many fi rms still struggle with estimating the return on investment (ROI) of sales
calls and adjusting their sales allocation to such ROI estimates. This involves ques-
tions about the effi cacy of virtual sales calls, about getting into doctor's practices
when such entry is increasingly discouraged, how to make sure doctors get the
required information, and how to make sure that the sales representatives comply
with the fi rms' normative and ethical guidelines and messaging, especially, say, in
developing markets.
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