Sales And Marketing

Interactions between biopharmaceutical research companies and healthcare professionals play a critical role in improving patient care and fostering the appropriate use of medicines. Providing physicians with timely information about the medicines they prescribe benefits patients and advances healthcare throughout the United States.

[See related resources to the right]

Maintaining ethical relationships with healthcare professionals is a key part of our companies’ mission to develop innovative medicines and help patients access these medicines. An important part of achieving this goal is ensuring that healthcare professionals have the latest, most accurate information about prescription medicines, which play an ever-increasing role in patient healthcare.

Appropriate communications regarding medicines helps ensure that patients receive the products they need and that those medicines are used correctly to benefit the patient as much as possible. Company relationships with healthcare professionals help achieve these goals by:

• Helping inform healthcare professionals about the benefits and risks (both established and emerging) of approved products
• Sharing new uses of approved medicines
• Disseminating recent data from clinical trials
• Obtaining feedback and advice from healthcare professionals

In their interactions with the medical community, PhRMA member companies are committed to following the highest ethical standards and all legal requirements. The Food and Drug Administration and other federal and state agencies regulate company activities with healthcare professionals, and companies devote substantial resources to compliance with government regulations.

In addition, PhRMA strengthened our "Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals" to reinforce our intent that interactions be professional, ethical, informational exchanges designed to benefit patients and to enhance the practice of medicine. The code recognizes that physician prescription decisions are based on various factors, including individual patient medical needs and the healthcare professionals' medical knowledge and experience.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising is another important resource for improving healthcare awareness and patient care. DTC advertising informs patients who are potentially suffering from undiagnosed conditions, raises awareness of treatment options, and benefits the U.S. healthcare system by encouraging patients to seek medical attention that may help manage conditions and avoid the need for hospitalization or surgery.

Surveys show that DTC advertising brings patients into their doctors' offices and helps foster important doctor-patient conversations about previously undiagnosed or untreated medical conditions. In fact, a national survey by Prevention Magazine found that 29 million patients talked to their doctors about a health condition for the first time after seeing DTC ads. During those conversations, according to the survey, most patients discuss behavioral and lifestyle changes, and more than half receive recommendations for nonprescription or generic drugs.

PhRMA’s revised “Guiding Principles On Direct-to-consumer Advertisements About Prescription Medicines,” which took effect March 2, 2009, address aspects of DTC ranging from healthcare professionals and celebrities featured in advertisements to the presentation of balanced benefit and risk information, to the appropriate timing and placement of advertisements with adult-oriented content.

America’s biopharmaceutical research companies invest billions of dollars researching and developing life-saving medicines. However, the work they do can only help benefit patients who have access to the innovative medicines they develop. Communicating with healthcare professionals helps providers and their patients stay current with important, up-to-date information on medicines and, thereby, improves patient care.

Resources

The Facts About Pharmaceutical Marketing And Promotion
This booklet offers facts about pharmaceutical marketing and promotion. PhRMA believes these facts are important to consider as the value of marketing and promotion are debated.

PhRMA Office Of Accountability
This office takes comments from the public and healthcare professionals regarding direct-to-consumer advertisements conducted by any signatory company to PhRMA's guiding principles on such ads.

Pharmaceutical Marketing in Perspective
This document explains the value and role of pharmaceutical marketing as one of many factors informing prescribing.