{"id":4594,"date":"2015-11-26T14:28:54","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T14:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mindthegraph.com\/?p=4594"},"modified":"2022-11-09T22:39:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T01:39:33","slug":"6-things-you-should-know-about-drug-ads-a-graphical-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mindthegraph.com\/blog\/6-things-you-should-know-about-drug-ads-a-graphical-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"6 things you should know about drug ads [a graphical guide]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"drugs\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

1- There is a lot of money involved<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Billions of dollars are spent on direct-to-consumer TV ads for prescription drugs, and because of that, doctors spend more time rebutting marketing claims than making diagnosis. That\u2019s why the American Medical Association (AMA) wants to ban this kind of advertising.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only the US and New Zealand allow consumer-direct marketing of prescription drugs and it is not going to be an easy task to change that, because the amount of money involved is huge. Here are the numbers for TV alone:<\/span><\/p>\n

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2- There is even more marketing money for doctors<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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It is interesting to think that all this money is spent on people that can\u00b4t buy the drugs directly, and that is why this is only a fraction of the big pharma expenses in marketing. In 2012, direct-to-consumers marketing dropped to $3.47 billion, but $24 billion were spent promoting the drugs to doctors in a lot of ways, like free lunches or training courses in fancy restaurants or resorts. These are practices that raise many ethical questions, like \u201cis the doctor prescribing the best drug or the one made by who bought him an expensive dinner\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

3- Big Pharma marketing on the web is increasing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What about the internet? Of course there is a substantial amount of money to address doctors, mainly in medical communities via social media. Click on the image below for some numbers:<\/span>
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4- Marketing vs R&D = Marketing wins<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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This chart shows us the proportion of investment in marketing versus R&D made by Big Pharma companies in the best way possible: a normalized scatter plot with context. <\/span>Thanks to Randal Olson for the excellent chart and post.<\/a><\/p>\n

Technology and automotive companies on the chart are:<\/p>\n