Even if the recent Harris poll holds some encouragement for the pharmaceutical industry, the reality remains stark for pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical representatives: drug industry professionals are not popular in the public eye.
Lisa Roner saw the recent Forbe’s article on the drug industry (May 8, 2006 issue) as an accusation in her column, “Getting back to science.”
What the Forbes article may be missing is how industry has may be created the quagmire it is in. If we only have one ACE inhibitor, one statin, one antibiotic, one antidepressant, one cancer drug… then there’s not much “selling” needed. The science would speak completely for itself, because science would be limited in this case.
There are varying degrees of science in selling and when communicating with healthcare providers. The industry has enabled tremendous advancements in medicine where both physicians and patients now have multiple drugs within a class to choose from. Because science has become diverse and more refined with the subtleties between drugs within a therapeutic class, the selling has become more intense.
Somewhere along the way, science may have gotten lost. I think what is actually happening is science being reprioritized underneath a quick sales message. Can we be surprised when 1) physicians give less than 2 minutes to reps and 2) reps may not feel prepared or comfortable discussing science in bite sized segments?
If our industry wants to change public perception that we care as much about the science as the sales – and that we can care equally about both and do good accomplishing both, then discussing science needs to gain higher priority.
The industry must foster a field environment where reps get enough time to have a meaningful scientific dialog with physicians, starting with reducing repetitive rep visits per physician. Until then, we can defend this industry until we’re blue in the face, the public believes in action, not philosophical debates.