Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 17
Understanding Sample Usage and Sampling
as a Promotion Tool: State of Industry Practice
and Current Research
Xiaojing Dong , Michael Li , and Ying Xie
Abstract
In the United States, drug sampling has been one of the most important
marketing practices adopted in the pharmaceutical industry. The U.S. pharmaceuti-
cal industry delivered an estimated $18.4 billion worth (in retail value) of free drug
samples to doctors in year 2005 alone - more than all other marketing expenses
combined. Although sampling, as a marketing tool, has been studied in the market-
ing literature, especially for consumer package goods; sampling in the pharmaceuti-
cal industry is very special due to the constraints that drug samples cannot be legally
dispensed directly from the manufacturers to consumers. This creates a unique
environment in which doctors play “gatekeeper and decision maker” role in dis-
pensing samples to patients.
In this chapter, we fi rst discuss the current industry practice of pharmaceutical
sampling in detail, focusing on the following seven topics: (1) why samples are
used; (2) the regulations governing pharmaceutical sampling; (3) sample decision
support practice in pharmaceutical industry; (4) how drug samples are delivered to
physicians; (5) how samples are consumed or dispensing pathway; (6) how samples
are used in treating patients; and (7) the concept of “Source of Business” and how it
is related to sample usage. We then discuss various sources of data that can be used
The authors Xiaojing Dong, Michael Li, and Ying Xie have contributed equally to this chapter.
X. Dong (
*
)
Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara,
CA 95053 , USA
e-mail: xdong1@scu.edu
M . L i
AnalyticWiz Consulting LLC , Fort Washington , PA , USA
e-mail: mli123@comcast.net
Y. Xie
Naveen Jindal School of Mangement, University of Texas at Dallas,
Richardson , TX 75080 , USA
e-mail: ying.xie@utdallas.edu
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