Consumers and Pharmaceutical Companies Far Apart on Views of Pharma Industry
A recent survey from PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows what I have been talking about for a long time. Namely that the pharma industry has not done a good job of explaining what it does and that there is an increasing credibility gap in the minds of consumers.
Here are the pertinent parts in my opinion.
• Three out of four (74 percent) consumers underestimate the average
financial investment required to research and develop a new drug by
more than 50 percent.• Consumers are split between believing that pharmaceutical companies
consider important unmet medical needs when deciding to develop a new
drug (55 percent) instead of choosing to develop “me-too” and
“lifestyle” drugs with the greatest sales potential (45 percent). This
compares to 71 percent of industry stakeholders and 91 percent of
pharmaceutical executives, respectively, who say health needs are a top
priority for pharmaceutical companies.• 94 percent of consumers and 81 percent of industry stakeholders said
that drug companies are too aggressive in promoting unapproved uses of
their product. Fewer than half (47 percent) of pharmaceutical company
executives agreed.• 62 percent of stakeholders agreed that drug companies often manipulate
or suppress negative clinical trial results to maximize sales. Four
out of five pharmaceutical executives disagreed.• nearly 94 percent of stakeholders agreed that drug companies spend too
much money on drug promotion overall, including direct-to-consumer
advertising as well as physician education and overall sales force initiatives.
Surprisingly, nearly three-quarters of industry executives agreed.• More than seven in 10 stakeholders (73 percent) agreed that drug
companies spend too much money and effort attempting to prevent generic
drugs from competing with their branded products. Consumers strongly
agreed that drug companies should be working with generic drug
manufacturers to make generics available upon expiration of their
branded drug’s patent.• Almost nine out of ten (86 percent) consumers underestimated the cost of
bringing a new drug to market. Independent studies place the cost of developing
a single marketed pharmaceutical product in excess of $800 million. Part of
public’s misconception may stem from the fact that consumers neither understand
who funds drug discovery nor appreciate the cost of failure that factors into each
success in the drug discovery process.
I’ve long said that many of the actions of the pharmaceutical industry just play right into some of these perceptions. I’ve been in the industry for over 14 years and don’t remember any general program geared towards education of consumers of what goes into developing a pharmaceutical.
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