INTRODUCTION

You are in the reception room of your physician's office with other patients waiting for your turn with the doctor. You are looking around the room – doing a little people watching – and you notice a well-dressed young woman carrying a brown bag that looks like a book bag from your elementary school days. You then observe that the young woman is called into the physician's office but is told by the receptionist that “the doctor only has a few minutes, so you need to be quick.” When you are later escorted into an examination room by one of the nurses, you pass the young woman, who is taking cartons out of her book bag briefcase and talking to the doctor. What you have witnessed is one of the many ways that pharmaceutical companies promote their prescription drug products. This chapter will describe the various ways in which companies promote prescription drugs and how the government regulates this promotion.

The marketing of prescription drugs is a significant business. Prescription drug sales in the United States alone were $228.8 billion in 2003. So even small shifts in sales from one product to another can result in millions of dollars of added or reduced revenue for a company. Companies are therefore aggressive in their promotion of prescription drugs. In addition, there does not appear to be any slowing down or leveling off of drug company expenditures on promotion.