Actually it's quite simple, it's about patients
Jun/25/2007 05:50 Filed in: DTC
Environment
Howard Stern said something last week on his radio show that I believe is reflective of how many consumer may feel. He said "why would you want to put a new pharmaceutical product in your body when you they don't even know the long term effects. I mean nobody knows the effects these chemicals have on your body." This is happening more and more with new drugs as more and more warnings get added to drugs already on the market. Pharma, in a rush to get drugs to market and start making back some of their investment dollars, could in fact be rushing some drugs to market. Just look at the warnings that have been added to SSRI's since they came on the market.
So why rush drugs to market? It's simple actually pharma wants to please Wall Street rather than focus on patient health. CEO's are scored on how well the stock does not on how many people are leading better lives because of prescription medications. Yes pharmaceutical companies are mostly public companies and have a duty to shareholders to make a profit but wouldn't focusing on patients and their health lead to more profits? Of course Pfizer, Merck and Lilly all have catchy phrases that falsely communicate that patients come first but when product decisions are made it usually comes down to a black and white balance sheet and "selling" people rather than educating and informing.
It's about patients and treating them with respect and realizing that they are well informed about product choices. But more importantly it's about believing that what we do enhances patients lives and that we need to be more transparent about marketing to patients and the risks of prescription drugs. If all marketing people would just realize that then pharma could begin winning the hearts and minds of a very skeptical public and media.
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