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Drugs advertising:
the influence of opinion leaders

Pharmaceutical companies like to get influential members of the medical profession – opinion leaders – involved in their sales effort.

Pharmaceutical companies use all sorts of tactics to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs, from advertising in the medical press to sending sales representatives to visit doctors' surgeries. Companies' sales strategies also involve opinion leaders, whose role is extensively described in all the manuals on pharmaceutical marketing. These opinion leaders are health professionals, usually from teaching hospitals, who are considered to be "experts" and whose endorsement is likely to influence their colleagues. A study carried out among pharmaceutical companies reveals that to launch a new drug, companies spend an average of 38 million dollars hiring opinion leaders for their sales campaigns. The figures vary enormously, and include funding for research that is to some degree directed by drugs companies, as well as conferences in far-flung places, writing articles (often in consultation with the company), etc. The remuneration for these activities is commensurate with the opinion leader's level of influence. Patients, health professionals and journalists should be wary of endorsements by medical opinion leaders, and should investigate the precise nature of any links such experts may have with pharmaceutical companies.

©Prescrire November 2005

Source: "Leaders d'opinion : coûteux, mais rentables pour les firmes pharmaceutiques" Rev Prescrire 2005 ; 25 (266) : 777.

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