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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

#141

Post by invalidOrTaken »

_ptgt wrote: post #73
harperlee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overly cynical. All companies exist to provide profits to their owners. Your argument about the datapoint can also be argued for lending: credit disappears when it’s most needed. It must be completely and utterly useless, then. Or perhaps when a crisis strikes, if you want to minimize spending, you first eliminate consultant bills, instead of, idk, firing internal employees? Part of the value of a consultant is that…

>All companies exist to provide profits to their owners. 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. Large manageme…

>i.e. the preoccupation of consultants is almost always "sell, sell, sell" rather than "help the client make money"

The hilarious part for me, as an independent consultant, is my partner and I often agonize over how to help the client make money in spite of themselves.

I'm not disagreeing with you---if we were employees for a big-c Consulting Firm we'd likely be under the gun to act as you describe whether we wanted to or not, and what we offer is definitely different from the most common experience people have of working with a consulting firm, but it's just funny for me to read.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#142

Post by _ptgt »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #141
_ptgt wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All companies exist to provide profits to their owners. 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. Large manageme…

>i.e. the preoccupation of consultants is almost always "sell, sell, sell" rather than "help the client make money" The hilarious part for me, as an independent consultant, is my partner and I often agonize over how to help the client make money in spite of themselves . I'm not disagreeing with you---if we were employees for a big-c Consulting Firm we'd likely be under the gun to act as you describe whether we wanted…

Right! I should clarify that I'm only describing the big management consulting firms that most everyone has heard of. I should have wrote "management" before each time I wrote" consultant" but I didn't want to be repetitive and hoped it would be clear from the context.

Independent consultants are an entirely different group and behave very differently.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#143

Post by [deleted] »

cco wrote: post #124
sverige wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think this is needlessly inflammatory. I agree with Trump on this and I’m sure many here do as well. No one has yet said, “orange man bad” so we shouldn’t conjure up that bug bear until it happens, it detracts from good faith conversation.

[deleted]

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#144

Post by flukus »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
harshreality wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs to discover what drugs are suitable for them. This is medicine, not a restaurant menu. If you're diagnosed with a medical condition or have a specific ailment, then you can investigate potential treatments. The status quo "compromise" solution gets this exactly backwards. "This drug will make your life better. So ask your doctor so they'll comb through your medical records and history looking for somethi…

> If you're diagnosed with a medical condition or have a specific ailment, then you can investigate potential treatments I know at least a few people who didn't realize they had an ailment until seeing the symptoms listed on an ad. There is a balance between promoting new drugs (and the affiliated afflictions) to the general public and pushing medicines to doctors.

In Australia you're allowed to advertise about the existence and symptoms of medical conditions just not to recommend any specific treatment other than "talk to your doctor". The pharmacist is also obliged to offer generic versions of drugs at purchase.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#145

Post by robocat »

markdown wrote: post #116
cj wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I believe the list is shorter if you make it about which countries allow direct-to-consumer advertising: USA, New Zealand. That's it.

The marketing is dispicable in NZ.

For example, I loath that they advertise paracetamol (acetaminophen) as "better for the stomach" directly targeting Aspirin and other NSAIDS. No mention of how many peoples livers get permanently fucked by paracetamol.

Unfortunately the advertising propaganda is successful, and people avoid safe drugs that have side effects that can be managed. Evil.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#146

Post by jplayer01 »

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…

Isn't the opioid crisis caused by sales reps directly marketing to doctors and promising benefits that didn't really exist (lower risk of addiction, lower dosis required for certain amounts of time)? Not sure how removing marketing to consumers changes the situation.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#147

Post by rasz »

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

No, they send doctors on symposiums to the Caribbean.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#148

Post by mettamage »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #52
refurb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may come as a shock to you, but marketing pharmaceuticals is really no different than marketing other products. It really comes down to educating consumers about your product. Doctors as decision makers are not some monolithic block of individuals who are super educated about every product on the market and every piece of data. Just developing awareness of new drugs is a huge job. I'd say less than 5% of doctors…

Not all marketing is "educating consumers about your product". Some of it is manufacturing a desire for your product. Look at car ads. Do they say "The new 2019 models are available"? A few do. Do they say "This car gets better gas mileage" or "This car is safer"? A few do. Most say "If you drive this car, you'll get the hot girl". That's not "educating consumers". That's trying to make consumers want your product on…

I simply wondered if I could play devil's advocate by looking up some research about men spending money for cars in order to attract women. I mean, most psychologists are men right? Surely, someone had the bright idea to look into this (I wonder if anyone has done it regarding the other way around, I'm too lazy to look it up since I can't play devil's advocate with that). As it turns out, there is research on it!

The introduction is the most juicy bit as the particular article I found is about intra-sex competition but states a few interesting studies in their introduction about being desirable to women.

In short what I skimmed so far related to this idea is:

"And indeed, a man who was seated in a luxury car was perceived as more attractive by women compared to the same man seated in a nonluxury car (Dunn & Searle, 2010). Hence, men appear to use showy spending to attract women in intersexual competition contexts. Sundie et al. (2011) further revealed that men’s flaunting of luxury goods signals their desirability as a shortterm (rather than long-term) mate."

Personally, I don't car about any of this. However, academically (from an evolutionary psych. view, lol): yes, men are seen as a more desirable mate!

If this conclusion is also actually true (and not subject to whatever ails the field of psychology) then I'd chalk it up to most of humanity being vain and if you want to get vain people you need to be the vainest of them all and get the sports car, the fancy house, other desirable 'high value' women in pictures and all that jazz. Though, why not just immediately go for the private helipad and private jet with built-in Jacuzzi? Nothing attracts as much as offering young people in general a trip around the world in pure luxury! Or so I presume. So don't buy the sports car. Buy the helipad with helicopter on top.

Source

Title: What If the Rival Drives a Porsche? Luxury Car Spending as a Costly Signal in Male Intrasexual Competition

DOI: 10.1177/1474704916678217

URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147470491667821...

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#149

Post by mettamage »

albertshin wrote: post #138

I wonder if it's just McKinsey is the bad apple in the mgmt consulting industry or if NYT just has more inside sources there than at other firms. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/asia/mckinsey-china... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/business/mckinsey-hedge-f... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/world/mckinsey-bribes-boe...

--- table via google ---

Firm Employees (Year) Revenue (Year)

McKinsey & Company 21,000 (2017) $10.0 B (2017)

Boston Consulting Group 18,500 (2018) $7.50 B (2018)

Bain & Company 8,000 (2017) $3.8 B (2017 est.)

--- end table ---

BCG is the only one that should have as much headlines provided they are similar in nature to McKinsey. If they are, then your hypothesis might be correct that the NYT has a lot of McKinsey sources. But how could you rule out that newspapers simply like to bash the #1 instead of the #2 or #3 if the industry leading companies are behaving in a similar fashion?

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#150

Post by navigatesol »

mr_crankypants wrote: post #40
refurb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may come as a shock to you, but marketing pharmaceuticals is really no different than marketing other products. It really comes down to educating consumers about your product. Doctors as decision makers are not some monolithic block of individuals who are super educated about every product on the market and every piece of data. Just developing awareness of new drugs is a huge job. I'd say less than 5% of doctors…

The problem here is that pharmaceutical companies' marketing departments have a deep conflict of interest. They're incentivized to encourage doctors to use the drug that makes their company the most profit, not the drug that is best for the patient. And there is plenty of research demonstrating that this is exactly what they do, and that doctors are indeed swayed by it, because, as you say, they don't have the time t…

>They're incentivized to encourage doctors to use the drug that makes their company the most profit, not the drug that is best for the patient.

The job of the marketing department isn't "best drug for patient". That's the doctor's duty. The marketing department is there to bring awareness of the product to both doctor and patient. There is no conflict of interest at all.

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