SEATTLE, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- A U.S. marketing study has shown the pharmaceutical industry's practice of giving doctors free drug samples has little effect on their prescribing habits.
Pharmaceutical drug companies spend upward of $25 billion per year on promoting new drugs, while direct-to-physician activities account for the bulk of spending. Some $5.3 billion is spent on a practice called "detailing" -- personal visits to physicians by pharmaceutical sales representatives in order to promote their firm's drugs.
Robert Jacobson, professor of marketing at the University of Washington Business School, and his colleagues analyzed data for three widely prescribed drugs issued by some 74,000 physicians over a two-year period to investigate the effect of pharmaceutical sales representatives on prescribing habits.
For the largest-selling drug in the study, which is also one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States, results indicated it would take approximately three additional visits by a pharmaceutical sales representative to induce one new prescription. It would take 26 additional free samples to induce one new prescription.
The study appears in the December issue of Management Science.
