Message me
Chicago north suburban-based Abbott Laboratories has drawn a flag on the marketing field for its promotion of its bipolar disorder & epilepsy treatment drug--Depakote. Desparate acts in the face of declining market share or trumped up government concerns?
Abbott Labs Hard Sell Earns Prosecutorial Inquiry
chicagotribune.com - 1 week ago - 261 views
14 Comments Have your say. Vote up the best responses. ↓
Reactions on the web
Latest tweets linking to this story (Share url: http://windycitizen.com/wfee)
Latest tweets linking to this story (Share url: http://windycitizen.com/wfee)
Invite your friendsExplore this story
Companies: Abbott Laboratories | Abbott Labs
Top Business Stories This Week
1
Comments
Many of the leading pharmaceuticals companies depend heavily on legal intellectual property protections to earn out-side profits on the sales of a few commercially viable research projects, while many blockbuster ideas never make it out of the laboratory. It's hard for patients to appreciate when a single pill may be very costly.
My vist with Abbott Laboratories during the 2004 5th Congressional District campaign explored ways to reduce pharmaceutical industry practices of spending as much as 20% of the expense on drug promotion & marketing to physicians & pharmaceutical benefit managers.
For example, what is one of the biggest clients of Panera Bread's catering business? Catered lunch for physicians served to their private offices & clinics throughout Chicago, according to one Panera executive heard interview sales representatives on Elston Avenue in Chicago.
Who gets the jobs promoting such pharmaceutical prescription writing? Published reports may amuse Windy Citizens to find out that well represented are those who include media professional experience & extra-curricular activities such as cheerleading.
National health care may help pharmaceutical companies to de-emphasize this marketing & allow them to concentrate efforts on reducing manufacturing expenses which are trumped up by antiquated Food & Drug Administration regulations which make it difficult for private manufacturers to innovate & introduce efficiencies.
(This Windy Citizen claims several pharmaceutical companies as past legal & security systems clients.)
I've known two people in the area of pharmaceutical sales, one was a manager who used to sell until he was promoted, the other a sales person. One of the things the manager told me was that sales reps have to be physically attractive, especially if they are women because of the majority of male physicians. Of course they'd never put that out there on a help wanted ad (or would they?) but as a friend, that's what he told me was one of the key criteria. So ex cheerleaders would very well make good sense here.
Marketing mavens must think alike, Tamale Chica.
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/11/28.php
Most of the cheerleaders appear to have been dispatched to Capital Hill.
I could never get into the cheerleader mentality mode, they are so beyond my personality type it's like they are on a different planet to me. Capital Hill? Will this help health care reform or are they just there to push drugs?
Turn on the television during (what's left of) prime time and you can't miss seeing at least one or two commercials for prescription drugs. Go to your general practitioner with anxiety, depression, problems concentrating, or some other relatively minor psychological complaint and walk out with (an expensive) prescription for some psychopharmacological panacea instead of a referral for therapy. Sure, many prescription drugs are a great advancement for healthcare. But it doesn't take much looking to find excessive marketing and prescribing for many of these drugs.
You're not kidding about "excessive" marketing. A friend of mine who is a PA (Physician Assistant) at Cook County moved from alternative to allopathic medicine. Ever since then, he's so frequently wined and dined at the trendy and very high priced restaurants (the type that will easily run $75 per person) that he dislikes eating out since he does so with such frequency, on the pharaceutical company's dime.
I also knew people who sold drugs (for the big pharmaceutical companies) and the pay was very good and the perks quite attractive. It was so attractive that when this one gal's husband lost his job, she said there was no rush for him to get employment since her job easily covered everything that they needed. And well, we know who ultimately pays for these perks.
Walking down a corridor in a medical center office building years ago, I passed a gentleman going the other way. His valise was jammed so full that it wouldn't close. What was it brimming with? Samples of Viagra.
Was he smiling?
Probably. I'm sure he left many smiles in his wake.
Another priceless exchange, Tamale Chica @ Disaffected!
Don't we make a nice couple! ;-)
E tu, Tomale Chica!
One in the same, Tamale Chica?
For some people, that's a good part of healthcare. It's not my cup of tea.
Post new comment