[venomsnake]

According to Ben Goldcare (Bad Science, Bad Pharma) the companies spend around 12% of their budgets on R&D and 30% on marketing ... so the R&D is the easy part to be funded - just outlaw the direct marketing to consumers and doctors and the companies can spend 3 times as much on R&D with no problems.

[takluyver]

Having heard Ben Goldacre speak, the problem isn't just direct-to-consumer marketing, which is already illegal in the UK for prescription drugs. Drug companies actually spend a lot of effort marketing to doctors, who think that they're smart enough to resist sales pitches. There's apparently evidence that they're not - doctors who see drug company reps prescribe those companies' drugs more often and have worse outcomes.

[FireBeyond]

"direct-to-consumer marketing, which is already illegal in the UK for prescription drugs".

No (well, yes), it's illegal in -every single country- in the world except for the US.

Only in America does your friendly pharmaceutical giant spend more money and energy on telling you what's wrong with you via non-individualized, vague 30 second spots - "Do you not get excited about anything? Cymbalta may help!" - than your healthcare providers.

As a healthcare professional -in the US-, this disturbs me hugely.

[arethuza]

Agreed - they are fantastic books.

His website is at: http://www.badscience.net/

[npsimons]

Haven't seen Goldacre's stuff, but I had heard (can't find a source right now) that it's actually closer to 80-85% of pharma companies costs are advertising and marketing. Can't think of a better place to cut costs, really.

[danielweber]

They spend money on marketing because it makes them money.

Say you spend $1 billion to develop a drug. That $1 billion number is a sunk cost; it is irrelevant to figuring out how much to spend on advertising and marketing.

Limiting marketing to less than that $1 billion that was spend on research makes no sense.

[npsimons]

Limiting marketing to less than that $1 billion that was spend on research makes no sense.

Perhaps; even if true, the fact is that drug companies claim they need patents (and other protections, both explicit and implied) to be able to recoup their R&D costs. If their R&D costs are swamped by their advertising costs, perhaps the problem isn't the cost of R&D, but mismanagement? I mean, honestly, it's not like they are producing luxury items. These companies are supposedly making a product that sells itself because their customers will die without it. To add to all that, arguments can (and have) been made that pharmaceutical advertising is a negative input to society by unduly influencing prescribers.

[twoodfin]

No problems? Why wouldn't your genius idea work in every sector of the economy? Surely Apple and Samsung could sell more, better phones if they didn't conduct market research or run ads...

[venomsnake]

Healthcare is unlike the rest of the economy. Drugs don't need marketing and market research. Because in healthcare you don't give what patients want but what they need.

If a drug is best in its class doctors will not need "seminars", "education" to use it - it will be self evident by the trials and outcomes. Oh but wait - you cannot compare drugs to other drugs. You only compare them to placebo thanks to the cuffs put on the various government agencies by the intense lobbying of the industry.

Edit: To get the drugs past the FDA you only need to show it behaves better than placebo. Comparative trials of drugs are a minority and rarely done.

[anoncow]

>You only compare them to placebo

I am not an expert, but look at the following study which compares two drugs.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00364806

[danielweber]

To get the drugs past the FDA you only need to show it behaves better than placebo

Not really. You need to show how it works compared to the current regimen.

If someone suffering from a disease currently takes drugs A, B, and C, and you have what you think is a better C (let's call it C++), then the study would compare people on (A,B,C) to people on (A,B,C++).

Unless there is no treatment at all for the disease, in which case, go for the placebo.

[twoodfin]

Because in healthcare you don't give what patients want but what they need.

Where's the line? Maybe I don't "need" a new prescription painkiller with substantially fewer gastrointestinal side effects than the OTC one I'm taking, but if it would greatly improve my quality of life, I certainly might want it. Maybe I'm lucky enough that I see my doctor regularly and he keeps up (without any pharmaceutical marketing?) on every medicine that might help me out, but why should consumers be force to depend on that?

The idea that there are hordes of people making doctor's appointments to demand brand name drugs they heard about on TV, and doctors are "forced" to write what they consider useless or overpriced prescriptions for these drugs seems silly to me.

[npsimons]

Maybe I'm lucky enough that I see my doctor regularly and he keeps up (without any pharmaceutical marketing?) on every medicine that might help me out, but why should consumers be force to depend on that?

You think that marketing helps? Maybe your doctor is unduly influenced by pharma marketing and prescribes you the worse drug that give you IBD; hell, maybe he prescribes you the wrong drug altogether because of marketing, and you die. It may sound beyond the pale, but borderline cases involving antidepressants (perhaps the most overmarketed drugs) have already happened.

[Avshalom]

humor.

That said you'll notice Samsung doesn't advertise it's chips or raw display panels, because they are not actually sold to the people watching The Daily Show.