The latest from DTC Perspectives

Rx Counter Marketing

The idea of countering drug company marketing with government funded detailers is growing. Time Magazine did an online story August 12 on a South Carolina program to provide alternative drug information to physicians. The purpose is to offer a non-commercial rebuttal to drug detailers and DTC ads which promote branded drugs. Time says the doctor gets most of their information from “the chipper, gift laden pharmaceutical sales people.”

Time says that there is no data yet on the effectiveness of the South Carolina program. The program uses pharmacy reps from the South Carolina College of Pharmacy. It is funded by the state's Medicaid program and clearly is designed to reduce prescribing of branded drugs. The Time story cites Pennsylvania as having a successful program, using the example of state Nexium costs being reduced by $572,000. That sounds like fairly modest savings for such a widely used drug.

I have no problem with counter detailing. It fits the free market solution, which is that more information is better than less. Let the doctor decide who provides the most credible evidence of a drug's value. Clearly the state sponsored programs have a goal to reduce costs and although they say they want to provide unbiased studies to doctors, I doubt that will be the case. More likely they will find studies that show the branded drugs have marginal value.

Counter detail programs are likely to be small scale and unlikely to have the muscle to counter the mass of drug company sales forces. This may change if the federal government steps in to make counter detailing a major effort. They may also decide it is more cost effective to do counter DTC efforts. That would be quite interesting to see mass DTC extolling the virtues of non-branded drug treatments. Imagine a few billion spent on that! I can even see Congress forcing the drug companies to fund it somehow.

Physicians deserve to get all the information about a drug's effectiveness and safety. If these programs help them make a better decision, that is great. It will motivate drug companies to provide more compelling reasons for branded drug use and may lead to less me-too thinking. That is good long term for all of us. Congress should focus on these information-based approaches to reducing cost, not through limitations on speech.