A Primary Care Physician's View of Pharmaceutical Marketing—Challenging the Marketing Assumptions

ABSTRACTConsidering the large amounts spent by the pharmaceutical industry on research and development, it is surprising that many of the industry's marketing strategies are based on sales assumptions that have been used largely unchallenged. Many of these techniques are not useful and can actually negatively affect the prescribing habits of primary care physicians. This article shares a primary care physician's observations on pharmaceutical marketing and some suggestions about how pharmaceutical marketing could be more effective.