Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Once detected, however, the confl ict rises to the surface and invites swift and
strong response. For instance, the industry's evidence-based strategy prompted
the
Journal of American Medical Association
, along with
International Committee
of Medical Journal Editors
to require all authors to include an explicit disclosure
of confl ict of interests and, for industry sponsored research, ask authors to con-
duct independent statistical analysis as a condition for publication (DeAngelis
2006
). Noting that “over 50 % of articles” in top journals may be “ghost-written,”
the U.K. House of Commons (Health Committee
2005
, p. 53) stressed that regula-
tory guidelines should “leave no room for ghost-writing.” Additionally, the
Accrediting Council for Continuing Medical Education has enforced strict poli-
cies against faculty recommendations and CME content reviews by commercial
sponsors. The American Medical Association and the American Psychiatry
Association have followed suit by restricting industry involvement in CME activi-
ties. In March 2009, the
Journal of the American Medical Association
(
JAMA
)
called on all professional medical associations to end drug company relationships.
Academic medical centers including Yale, Harvard, Duke, Stanford, University of
Pennsylvania, Henry Ford Health System, and UCLA have banned physicians
from receiving monetary or non-monetary gifts, however small, and prohibited
drug samples and detailers from patient care areas (Croasdale
2006
).
Rising public aversion to industry's deliberate confl ation of logics in its market-
ing strategies has also invited regulatory intervention. The recent healthcare reform
in the United States includes the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, a mandate for
transparency in the fi nancial relationships between pharmaceutical industry and
physicians. Additionally, prosecutors and professional agencies have imposed mon-
itoring and oversight restraints on pharmaceutical industry-physician interactions.
Recently, ProPublica has provided open access to a searchable database called “dol-
lars for docs” for public to uncover industry payments to local physicians.
24.5
Open Systems Framework for Pharmaceutical
Marketing Strategies: Directions for Future Research
and Practice
Our comprehensive analysis of pharmaceutical marketing strategies and tactics
unveils new insights and calls for new directions for research and practice. First, our
analysis provides evidence that pharmaceutical marketing strategies are largely
driven by an economic model to maximize ROI and maintain focus on consequen-
tial gains. More signifi cantly, our analysis lays bare the intricate and carefully
crafted interdependencies among a diverse set of tactical moves that pharmaceutical
marketing managers construct as strategy to infl uence physician decision making.
What makes these strategies aversive to physicians and public alike is not so much
as they are driven by an economic imperative of “self-interest without guile” but the
systematic and sustained effort to cloak the economic self-interest within a logic of
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