McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales • Hacker News Board

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#51

Post by ivraatiems » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

notfromhere wrote: post #35

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…

Except it's not marketing products to doctors, who are the gatekeepers to access. It's marketing to consumers, who aren't informed, and are then used to badger doctors to make them prescribe medicines they heard about on TV.

Actually, big pharma does both. Marketing to doctors is sometimes even more sinister, because of (often implied) incentives for pushing more of a medication on the physician's patients.

Some resources:

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180514132441.h...

[2] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-shee...

Plus, this classic Scrubs clip describing a particularly chauvinistic (but truth-in-television) take on the practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMXa0U4WZyU

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#52

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #23

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.

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 the basis of something completely unrelated to your product.

And yes, I fear that marketing pharmaceuticals may in fact not be different from marketing any other product.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#53

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #23

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.

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…

Marketing comes down to educating consumers about your product? Have you ever seen marketing? Any education that occurs is either accidental or legally mandated.

I do agree with you that pharmaceutical marketing isn’t fundamentally different from marketing other products. Although my conclusion from that is not that pharmaceutical marketing is therefore good.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#54

Post by nitrogen » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

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…

Maybe an alternative to drug marketing would be to have an independent national or international group (e.g. NIH or CDC) inform doctors about new drugs based on their prior prescriptions, and to present the preregistered clinical trials at medical conferences just like any other research result to reach the rest.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#55

Post by dwaltrip » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #23

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.

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…

This may come as a shock to you, but educating the consumer is not the primary purpose of advertising.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#56

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #6

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.

Ad supporters will sometimes say that ads are meant to get the word out about a product so people know its an option. How can we prove that this is false or that the benefits are smaller than the drawbacks?

Seems simple: what are they willing to pay for a completely boring just-the-facts advertisement, the sort of thing you’d see in the classifieds? If the answer isn’t “pretty much the same” then they know the glitz and bullshit is critical.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#57

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

henryfjordan wrote: post #28

im3w1l wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad supporters will sometimes say that ads are meant to get the word out about a product so people know its an option. How can we prove that this is false or that the benefits are smaller than the drawbacks?

I would like to see a compromise where new drugs are allowed to be advertised to the public for say 1 year following their release then never again. People need agency in their own medical choices, and knowing there is a drug for your medical condition is very empowering. Especially as we talk more and more about moving to a single-payer system, it's important to make sure patients have the power to question their do…

How about we periodically publish a big book that lists all approved drugs, their uses and side effects, and send it to every residence in the country like we (used to?) do with phone books.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#58

Post by harperlee » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #24

For better or for worse, consulting companies exist to: 1) Enrich their partners 2) Lend credibility to their clients Consulting firms are hired based on an "appeal to authority" fallacy. Companies don't want to make hard/unpopular decisions, so they outsource them to consultants. Data point: management consulting is one of the industries that is hit hardest by a recession. [0] If consultants truly provided value, th…

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 they are more mobile than an employee, so they get to see the same problem in different companies, and get expertise on that issue more quickly that if you stay on the first company in which you solved that issue. I’ve dealt with the same very-specific software on about 20 different banks, for example (disclaimer: I’m a consultant :) ); I have people under 25 on the team that are real experts on very specific things, and run cicles around people with 2x - 5x their experience if you count it in days and not problems solved.

And then of course consultants are sometimes hired for the wrong reasons and asked to do obvious recommendations. Politics were there before the consultants arrived.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#59

Post by bspn » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

markus92 wrote: post #46

notfromhere wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not marketing products to doctors, who are the gatekeepers to access. It's marketing to consumers, who aren't informed, and are then used to badger doctors to make them prescribe medicines they heard about on TV.

That's only in two countries in the world (NZ and USA).

And in reality, it's really only the US. Even though pharmaceutical ads are legal in NZ, they are pretty rare and most GPs won't just write a script because a patient asks for a particular drug unless there's a clear need for it. The role of Pharmac (NZ's central drug purchasing agency) also tempers the effectiveness of drug advertising so you just don't see it like you do in the mainstream US media.

Re: McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales

#60

Post by refurb » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

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…

My counter to your comment, and my own personal experience, is that doctors are fully aware of the manufacturers conflict of interest. They know that the drug companies will present everything in the best possible light.

Other things that exist to counter this bias are competitors, who will provide a different perspective and most importantly, the FDA that regulates all pharmaceutical promotion for accuracy and will quite swiftly drop the hammer on a company that bends the rules.[1]

[1]https://www.fda.gov/drugs/warning-letters-and-notice-violati...