About Pharmaceutical Sales
Pharmaceutical sales is the primary method used by pharmaceutical companies to market their products to physicians. The practice brings many benefits to physicians, but also has some aspects that have been brought into question by legislators and the media. The future of this industry, or at least the marketing practices used by pharmaceutical companies, is in question as healthcare becomes a prominent issue in the United States and other countries.
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Function
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Pharmaceutical sales is an outside sales position which involves traveling to physician's offices to discuss the benefits of using specific pharmaceutical products. Pharmaceutical companies use pharmaceutical sales representatives to educate physicians and other practitioners that their products are available for use. Because physicians are busy, they generally do not have time to research new products that have reached the market and review studies to see how effective the treatment has been for different medical problems. Pharmaceutical sales representatives provide a service to physicians by bringing this information to them.
History
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The practice of using outside sales representatives to market pharmaceutical products directly to physicians began around the 1960s and 1970s. It was in the early 1900s that scientists began to make discoveries of pharmaceutical products that could help with common illnesses, but it wasn't even common practice to advertise or market these products until much later. When several pharmaceutical companies developed similar products to treat the same disease, the market became competitive and drug companies started using marketing and advertising strategies as a method to gain an edge over their competition.
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Theories/Speculation
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, pharmaceutical companies began to take some heat in the media. Several drugs were found to be unsafe and were taken off the market by the FDA. Members of the general public began to distrust pharmaceutical companies, and the amount of money that is spent on advertising and marketing pharmaceutical products became a topic of discussion. Questions arose about the amount of money that was being spent on expensive consumer advertising campaigns and large salaries with company cars for thousands of pharmaceutical sales representatives. People wondered whether this money would be better spent on researching and developing new products and finding cures for terminal diseases. Concerns were also brought up about the cost of prescription medications, and whether this expense was due to the extravagant amounts of money being spent on advertising.
Benefits
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The practice of sending pharmaceutical sales representatives into doctor's offices does offer some benefits to the physicians and other practitioners. Physicians are placed under greater stress to see more and more patients each day, and they have many other obligations such as on-call rotation, hospital rounds, and outside interests. Many new pharmaceutical products are released each year, and it's difficult for physicians to find time to research what new products are available. Pharmaceutical sales offers benefits to physicians in this area by bringing valuable information right to the office. Sales representatives frequently use clinical studies as a way to convince physicians that their product is better than a competitor, and these studies are useful to physicians when determining how to treat a particular illness.
Potential
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As healthcare becomes a more prominent issue in political circles, pressure will be placed on pharmaceutical companies to allocate their resources more efficiently. Changes continue to take place regarding what will be permitted in relation to advertising and marketing by the FDA and by the PHRMA Guidelines. The PHRMA Guidelines are created by a collaboration of representatives from many larger pharmaceutical companies. These guidelines are created in an attempt to level the playing field by placing restrictions on the lengths pharmaceutical companies can go to to get physicians to write for their products. For example, pharmaceutical sales representatives are not permitted to take physicians on golf outings and foot the bill in an attempt to gain a physician's loyalty to their products. These and other guidelines continue to get stricter, and it's possible that pharmaceutical companies may be forced to cut back on the amount of pharmaceutical sales representatives they have in the field and the ways they market their products.
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