Innovation is Not Just for Drugs

I want to share with you why Innovation is not just for (pharmaceutical) drugs, and how every industry employee – especially pharmaceutical sales representatives – should welcome the ongoing scrutiny of and apparent “backlash” against industry promotional practices.

Ryan at Pharmboard.com posted a video on a newsclip that criticizes direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. The industry has spent billions of dollars on DTC ads and industry critics are pointing fingers at DTC ads for prompting patients to approach their doctors about the newest prescription drugs. The industry has been accused by some physicians and activists as harboring unethical practices, bribing doctors, and being greedy at the patients’ expense.

How can we expect to foster a society enamored with innovation – getting the newest gadgets and being at the forefront of progress – then turn around and expect that we discriminate against some innovation but not others? The industry is certainly not without its flaws and blunders. However, we’re living in a society where people lease cars so they can get “the newest and best” vehicles every 3 years. We pick from our collection of color ipods to match our outfits. We replace our cells phones as often as we change our hair color. We glorify companies that come up with the newest gadgets and the “disruptive” technologies that force entire industries to change how they do business… Why do you think Google founders are gazillionaires?

… Then we are surprised that patients adopt the same “newer is better!” mindset to prescription drugs?

The catch is that unlike gadgets, drugs don’t work the same for everyone, and this is where industry antagonists sink their teeth into. They are upset that the industry produces too many “me-too” drugs when each addition to a menu of the same drug class means patients get more choices to select the drug that gives them the best risk-benefit ratio. They are upset that the DTC drug ads are conspiring to get patients to demand the newest drugs when they don’t think about all the consumer ads flanking that drug ad urging the same patient to buy the next sports car, use the improved formula shampoo, and get the coolest cell phone.

I want to blame the pharma industry for failing one very important critical task: it has failed to train its pharma reps to explain to doctors exactly what type of patients benefit from which member of drugs within the same drug class. Instead, some executives want to get “every patient” – a blockbuster mentality that is rapidly becoming obsolete in an increasingly fragmented, niched society.

This article serves to establish a baseline of consumer mentality that we’ve all adopted to an extent. For any of us who have traded in a walkman for a CD player for an mp3 player for an iPod, traded an old car for a new one (or a new car for an even newer model), or changed cell phones every time a slimmer model comes on market, we have the same mindset as the patient who sees the newest drug and wants the doctor to give us “the newest, and therefore the best.” Our consciousness has been conditioned by the very media that criticizes the drug industry to believe that “newest is therefore the best.”

Some doctors are “fighting back against pharma promotion” and you as pharmaceutical sales representatives want to welcome this.