Ten Ways Pharmaceutical Companies Market to Your Doctor

Even when it was illegal for pharmaceutical companies to advertise treatments for erectile dysfunction to the public, they had enormous amounts of cash invested in marketing programs. Your medical providers -- doctors, nurse practitioners, and others -- are literally bombarded by drug advertisements.

Methods Pharmaceutical Companies Use

1. Classes on off-label uses of a drug - While a drug approved by the FDA to treat depression may be very effective, that may not be where its real value lies. A little-known fact is that off-label use, or using a drug for a non-FDA-approved treatment, is completely legal and very common. These off-label uses aren't publicised; it's illegal. But in a necessary loophole, they can be taught in classes. Your physician may be attending drug classes where he is learning that sildenafil (Viagra) may be used for, say, treating certain types of hypertension.

Off-label uses are good because they allow circumvention of the FDA to provide seriously-ill people treatments that have been shown save. Still, they don't always work the way preliminary pharmaceutical research indicates. They are great news for the pharmaceutical industry, though, because it allows a single drug to double, triple, or further increase the people who will use it.

2. Little "premiums" - look at the notepads, magnets, pens, clipboards, even posters in your doctor's office. Most will have the imprint of a pharmaceutical company on them. Sales staff leave these in doctors' offices to keep their names and brands fresh in the physician's mind.

3. Free samples - When prescribing a new drug, your doctor usually has blister packs of pills ready to hand to you. He doesn't get those by ordering them or buying them at the pharmacy; instead, pharmaceutical salespeople leave these at his office.

Doctors are reluctant to switch prescriptions when they have been started. This means if you start taking Levitra using sample packs and it works, the doctor will continue prescribing it to you. And they are much more likely to prescribe medications that they have available free samples for.