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McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

nytimes.com

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Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#101

Post by cj »

umvi wrote: post #83
cwkoss wrote: post #4

The marketing of medicine in inherently unethical because it seeks to override doctors and consumers information-based evaluations, and instead make a choice based on emotional propaganda. The harm caused by any given medical advertisement is directly proportional to its effectiveness. Every pharmaceutical sales rep is an immoral cancer on our society.

I think society would benefit immensely from banning the advertising of drugs. This includes both medicinal and recreational drugs. Make all drugs legal, but mandate they have boring text/information-only labels, put the more dangerous ones behind the counter in smaller quantities, and let the only thing influencing their purchase be doctor recommendations/prescriptions or personal research. It should apply evenly fr…

> I think society would benefit immensely from banning the advertising of drugs.

This is already the case in many places outside the USA (Canada, Europe, Brazil, Hong Kong).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#102

Post by harperlee »

_ptgt wrote: post #88
harperlee wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Management consultants nearly always have a conflict of interest though (i.e. the preoccupation of consultants is almost always "sell, sell, sell" rather than "help the client make money") due to the nature of their work and their short-term contact-based engagements mean they rarely have to stick around and deal with the messes that they create. Not my experience at all. If you show value to the client and you bui…

>If you show value to the client and you build a trust relationship then you enter into a relational mode that is fruitful for both sides, and you skip/streamline all the tedious commercial topics (RFPs, competitors, beauty contests, the purchasing department demanding a 3% discount...). On the other hand, if you want to milk the cow dry then you end up on a very transactional relationship and you need to start cold…

> near ubiquitous distrust for consultants among almost everyone who has worked with them

Perhaps this empirical observation doesn’t have enough unbiased samples. Consulting in general, more in particular management consulting, and even more in particular strategy consulting (where MMB, McKinsey, Boston, Bain are leaders; and the kind that sparkled this discussion), are 3 different, huge, mature, global industries. So there are empirical odds enough to say that people trust them enough to pay them, which is at odds with that universal distrust you state.

Perhaps that “ubiquitous distrust” is just more prevalent in HN or in the IT industry.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#103

Post by dooglius »

davidivadavid wrote: post #98
dooglius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think advertising promotes innovation? I would see it as the other way around, why innovate when you can just invest more into advertising an inferior product?

Because consumers aren't stupid and that doesn't work, probably? Because your competitor will gladly advertise their more innovative and better product, and yours will look inferior?

Can you discern the quality of two different drugs based on their respective ads? I certainly can't, if you have a way, I'd be interested to hear it.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#104

Post by tynpeddler »

cwkoss wrote: post #4

The marketing of medicine in inherently unethical because it seeks to override doctors and consumers information-based evaluations, and instead make a choice based on emotional propaganda. The harm caused by any given medical advertisement is directly proportional to its effectiveness. Every pharmaceutical sales rep is an immoral cancer on our society.

>The marketing of medicine in inherently unethical because it seeks to override doctors and consumers information-based evaluations, and instead make a choice based on emotional propaganda.

This is far to simplistic. It's fairly common for doctors to be unaware or poorly informed on new or uncommon treatments. They have a finite amount of time and brainpower and are not all knowing.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#105

Post by wpietri »

gringoDan wrote: post #5
cwkoss wrote: post #4

The marketing of medicine in inherently unethical because it seeks to override doctors and consumers information-based evaluations, and instead make a choice based on emotional propaganda. The harm caused by any given medical advertisement is directly proportional to its effectiveness. Every pharmaceutical sales rep is an immoral cancer on our society.

To play Devil's Advocate - without pharmaceutical companies developing and marketing drugs, how do we set up an incentive structure that encourages R&D and innovation?

If there is any devil that doesn't need your help, it's the pharma industry.

It's important to realize that to a first approximation, advertising prescription drugs is pure waste. The main case is pharma companies battling for fixed market share. That is, there are N people who have the problem, and companies X, Y, and Z are spending money trying to maximize their share of the market. The ad spend changes which pharma company does the best, but that money comes from the sick people, who would be better off without it.

The other case for advertising is demand generation, and for drugs I think it's mostly waste as well. I definitely know a couple people who are not sick enough to really need drugs (or perhaps not sick at all), but advertising-induced hypochondria means they badger their doctor until they get a prescription. That's an expensive boondoggle.

I'm sure there are some people who hear an ad and realize they have an actual problem. But if that's a significant issue, I'd rather we just paid for public service announcements for disease awareness, rather than hoping the very profitable drugs are the same ones people have the biggest medical need for.

And theory aside, advertising prescription drugs to the public was illegal for decades and we still did fine on the medical innovation front.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#106

Post by swsieber »

sokoloff wrote: post #97
umvi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think society would benefit immensely from banning the advertising of drugs. This includes both medicinal and recreational drugs. Make all drugs legal, but mandate they have boring text/information-only labels, put the more dangerous ones behind the counter in smaller quantities, and let the only thing influencing their purchase be doctor recommendations/prescriptions or personal research. It should apply evenly fr…

I think that almost immediately ends up in a morass of private information web sites, none of which are as trustworthy as current FDA-regulated labeling. Do you prefer Instagram "influencers" to have more control over what drugs people take than the current regulated advertising? I don't.

I don't think they would. Do they currently have instagram drug influencer in Europe, where direct-to-consumer drug advertising is illegal?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#107

Post by cwkoss »

Erik816 wrote: post #95
umvi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think society would benefit immensely from banning the advertising of drugs. This includes both medicinal and recreational drugs. Make all drugs legal, but mandate they have boring text/information-only labels, put the more dangerous ones behind the counter in smaller quantities, and let the only thing influencing their purchase be doctor recommendations/prescriptions or personal research. It should apply evenly fr…

I think beer should be considered food, but otherwise I can get on board with this.

Gruits were medicinal herbal meads - funny to think that in not-so-distant history, a doctor may have prescribed one of several "medicinal beers".

It's interesting how molecules can be considered 'food', 'medicine' or 'poison' in different contexts.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#108

Post by sokoloff »

swsieber wrote: post #106
sokoloff wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that almost immediately ends up in a morass of private information web sites, none of which are as trustworthy as current FDA-regulated labeling. Do you prefer Instagram "influencers" to have more control over what drugs people take than the current regulated advertising? I don't.

I don't think they would. Do they currently have instagram drug influencer in Europe, where direct-to-consumer drug advertising is illegal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising

I would think that pharma companies currently instead just advertise in American media and trust that the word will get over to consumers in Europe...

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#109

Post by m463 »

tynpeddler wrote: post #104
cwkoss wrote: post #4

The marketing of medicine in inherently unethical because it seeks to override doctors and consumers information-based evaluations, and instead make a choice based on emotional propaganda. The harm caused by any given medical advertisement is directly proportional to its effectiveness. Every pharmaceutical sales rep is an immoral cancer on our society.

>The marketing of medicine in inherently unethical because it seeks to override doctors and consumers information-based evaluations, and instead make a choice based on emotional propaganda. This is far to simplistic. It's fairly common for doctors to be unaware or poorly informed on new or uncommon treatments. They have a finite amount of time and brainpower and are not all knowing.

Maybe the pharmaceutical companies can help by flying these overworked doctors to Hawaii for an informational conference.

or possibly just delivering takeout to them at the hospital so they can relax and research new treatments while eating.

(seriously, drug companies give doctors free takeout)

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#110

Post by refurb »

Scoundreller wrote: post #77
pmart123 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, when a breakthrough happens like with Gilead’s hep c drug, a single governing body is far less likely to educate and inform doctors that a major disease can basically be cured even if all the evidence points this to be the case. Think about how long it took the food pyramid to be changed despite all the evidence that you should be eating six loafs of bread each day.

A drug that good tends to sell itself. There will be those that don’t change their practice ever once they graduate (seen a few). Things get more complex when you have dozens of treatments for a condition with no clear winner.

I appreciate how you said “tends to sell itself”.

Before I got in the industry I thought “what the hell does marketing do?”. Then once I saw what they do, I realized, no, most drugs don’t sell themselves, there is too much inertia for doing the same old thing.

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