Background: Pharmaceutical firms heavily promote their products and may have changed marketing strategies in response\r\nto reductions in new product approvals, restrictions on some forms of promotion, and the expanding role of biologic\r\ntherapies.\r\nMethods: We used descriptive analyses of annual cross-sectional data from 2001 through 2010 to examine direct-toconsumer\r\nadvertising (DTCA) (Kantar Media) and provider-targeted promotion (IMS Health and SDI), including: (1) inflationadjusted\r\ntotal promotion spending ($ and percent of sales); (2) distribution by channel (consumer v. provider); and (3)\r\nprovider specialty both for the industry as a whole and for top-selling biologic and small molecule therapies.\r\nResults: Total promotion peaked in 2004 at US$36.1 billion (13.4% of sales). By 2010 it had declined to $27.7B (9.0% of sales).\r\nBetween 2006 and 2010, similar declines were seen for promotion to providers and DTCA (both by 25%). DTCAââ?¬â?¢s share of\r\ntotal promotion increased from 12% in 2002 to 18% in 2006, but then declined to 16% and remains highly concentrated.\r\nNumber of products promoted to providers peaked in 2004 at over 3000, and then declined 20% by 2010. In contrast to\r\ntop-selling small molecule therapies having an average of $370 million (8.8% of sales) spent on promotion, top biologics\r\nwere promoted less, with only $33 million (1.4% of sales) spent per product. Little change occurred in the composition of\r\npromotion between primary care physicians and specialists from 2001ââ?¬â??2010.\r\nConclusions: These findings suggest that pharmaceutical companies have reduced promotion following changes in the\r\npharmaceutical pipeline and patent expiry for several blockbuster drugs. Promotional strategies for biologic drugs differ\r\nsubstantially from small molecule therapies.
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