MARKETING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS TO CONSUMERS

1
MARKETING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS TO CONSUMERS

• Should Prescription Drug Companies be able to
  Market their products directly to Consumers?
• Europe vs. USA

2
PRESCRIPTION DRUG ADVERTISEMENTS

• Youtube Commercials

3
MARKETING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

• USA
• Freedom to advertise directly to consumers
• TV Commercials
• Magazine Advertisements
• Online Advertisements
• Newspaper Advertisements
• Radio Commercials
• Etc.

4
MARKETING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

• Europe
• Marketing directly to consumers was highly
  prohibited
• Prescriptions were only marketed to Physicians
• Recently passed a law that relaxes these
  requirement
• This law allows non-biased print and online ads
  only

5
PROBLEMS FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUG COMPANIES

• Consumers dont know what products are available
• Doctors loyalty towards certain drugs
• Less Revenue
• More difficult for newer products to break
  through the market

6
CONSUMERS STANDPOINT

• Consumers dont know what products are available
• Consumers are becoming more involved in their
  treatment and they are demanding information
• Hard to police the line between facts and fiction

7
ADVERSE AD CAMPAIGNS

• Prescription Drug Companies have started to
  formulate ad campaigns towards disease awareness
• This gets the patient to the Doctors Office to
  get prescribed the drug
• Even though a drug company is promoting disease
  awareness they are still not allowed to put the
  drugs name on the advertisement

8
EXAMPLES

• Novartis AG Lamisil
• Started running advertisements for awareness of
  nail fungi
• Consequently
• More people visited doctors for nail fungi
  problems and Lamisil was prescribed more
• When the ads stopped sales slowed

9
PRESCRIPTION DRUG COMPANIES FIGHTING FOR THE
RIGHT TO ADVERTISE

• "We're not interested in advertising to patients.
  We will accept any reasonable oversight of the
  information we provide to ensure it's unbiased
  and to ensure it achieves its objective, which is
  to really improve patients' ability to manage
  their own health care," said Arthur Higgins,
  chief executive of Bayer AG's health-care unit
  and head of the European Federation of
  Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.
• Companies continue to say they will NOT start
  US-style advertising

10
SUMMARY

• Europe is against direct advertising to consumers
  of prescription drugs.
• They will allow disease awareness advertisements
  and print or online advertisements that are
  unbiased
• US is one of 2 countries that allows direct to
  consumer advertising of prescription drugs
• Prescription drugs companies have less sales in
  countries without direct to consumer advertising

11
RELATING TO OUR CLASS

• Europe is changing its laws on advertising
• Companies can now use direct marketing to
  communicate with the consumers
• Even though these laws are being relaxed, some of
  the advertisements still have to be adapted to
  the European culture.
• Global Advertising
• A risk in going global- you need to know the laws
  of the countries in which you are doing business

12
REFERENCES

• Wall Street Journal - http//online.wsj.com/articl
  e_email/SB122340544043612127-lMyQjAxMDI4MjEzMzQxMD
  M1Wj.html
• Bnet- Business Network - http//findarticles.com/p
  /articles/mi_qa4040/is_200807/ai_n27901799