But the pharmaceutical firms don t like to talk about their marketing costs. Television commercials for drugs such as Vioxx, Celebrex, Lipitor, Prilosec or Prevacid don t come cheap. Such ads are designed to get patients to request prescriptions from physicians and they seem to work. The pharmaceutical industry spends twice as much courting doctors. Over the past five years, there has been a 64 percent increase in marketing to physicians.
Dinners are a favorite tactic.
Because many doctors don t want to waste valuable office time talking to drug sales representatives, the companies have come up with novel enticements. Some doctors could dine for free at fine restaurants almost every night of the week, if they had the inclination. In return, they are expected to listen to a presentation about one pharmaceutical or another. But the competition is heating up and many doctors don t even want to sit through the speech. That translates into picking up dinner for the family courtesy of the drug company.