Rx companies counter that drug advertising actually lowers the nation's healthcare bill because consumers are encouraged to take medicine that can prevent major illnesses and reduce hospital costs down the road.Critics of prescription drug ads are expected to go into overdrive with the launch of marketing campaigns to treat premature ejaculation, the next frontier for Rx ads. Johnson & Johnson has developed Priligy, a pill sold in nine countries but not here. Atlanta’s Sciele Pharma will seek approval next year from the Food & Drug Administration to promote a “metered dose aerosol sprayed on the skin that it intended to increase latency time,” according to the New York Times of Dec. 13.
J&J and Sciele are looking to replicate the success of Pfizer's Viagra, which chalked up nearly $2 billion in global sales last year. Introduced in 1998, that erectile dysfunction treatment has become part of the cultural fabric, according to Jim Maffezzoli, a marketing director at Pfizer. Joseph Schepers, VP-corporate communications at Sciele, says P.E. is more prevalent than E.D. , affecting one third of all men. Sciele sees a road paved with silver dollars once the company makes it clear that P.E. sufferers are in need of a medical intervention.
The Times noted that creating a blockbuster quality-of-life drug like Viagra “involves more than just being innovative or being first. Sometimes it requires a drug maker to create and market a whole new category of disease.” In other words, you have to convince a whole lot of people that their jittery leg or shyness merits medical treatment.
The Times quotes author and pharmaceutical researcher Alan Cassels saying, “Marketers know you don’t sell the steak, you sell the sizzle.”
The title of Cassells' book neatly wraps things up. It's called “Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All Into Patients.”
(Image: StupidCancerBlog)