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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16417

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Electronic Source

Goozner M
The Next Marketing Frontier: Gardasil for Boys
GoozNews Health Tech Review 2009 Sep 6
http://www.gooznews.com/healthtechreview/node/3067


Abstract:

Merck’s marketing muscle turned Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents the spread of human papillomavirus (HPV), into a
must-have accessory for teenage girls. Ubiquitous television and magazine ads led the way by warning kids and their
parents that some HPV strains cause cervical cancer, which gets diagnosed in about 12,000 American women annually and
kills 4,000. Several leading professional medical societies, each a recipient of Merck’s generous financial support,
endorsed the campaign.

This vaccine-as-cancer-prevention strategy also received a major boost from the government. Almost immediately after the
Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil in 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously endorsed the HPV vaccine for girls aged 11 and older. The result: Over
23 million doses of the $300-a-shot HPV vaccine (a course of three is required for the best immunity) were administered
in its first three years on the market. Worldwide sales for Merck soared to more than $1.4 billion in both 2007 and
2008, more than half outside the U.S.

However, Merck’s sales have slowed sharply this year as penetration among the most lucrative market — well-insured and
well-off young girls in the advanced industrial countries — reached saturation. Over 25 percent of 13-to-17-year-old
girls in the U.S. have now been vaccinated. So from Merck’s perspective, it makes sense to move on to the next marketing
frontier: teenage boys.

 

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