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Home » Pharma Blog Watch
Pharma Blog Watch
Free Lunches
and Pens (Pharma Marketing Blog)
In his entry, blogger John Mack takes issue with a Newsweek report that
in 2004 pharma companies spent $7.3 billion on "free lunches and pens"
for physicians. He did the math and found that "each high prescriber would
receive $43,000 worth of free lunches and pens
no one could eat that
much lunch or use that many pens!"
In reality, according to Mack, that amount represents all the costs of "sales-rep contacts," which include "wages, bonuses, car, rep expenses, and most importantly, sales aids and other promotional items/expenses. The latter may include physician 'freebies' like compensation to attend conferences, consulting fees, ghost writing services, etc."
Sanofi's Silence
(In the Pipeline)
In his blog, Derek Lowe wonders about sanofi-aventis' secretiveness about the
delay in approval of its weight-loss drug, asking "[W]here is Acomplia/rimonabant,
anyway?"
"It's amazed me for months now that sanofi-aventis can get away with saying nothing at all about the prospects for their potential biggest-selling drug ever," he writes. "I'm not sure what it is about the sanofi corporate culture that makes this strategy seem like a good idea, but they might want to reexamine it."
KEYWORDS FDAnews Drug Daily Bulletin
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