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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3066

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: news

Manuse A.
Marketing bipolar treatment
Metro West Daily News 2005 Dec 20
http://web.archive.org/web/20060202114946/http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/716327


Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

This research suggests that psychiatrists and primary care physicians have different degrees of susceptibility to marketing of certain psychoactive drugs.

The psychiatrists are much more likely to prescribe drugs with more adverse effects.

It is hard to know why psychiatrists as a group appear to be comparatively indifferent to the suffering of their patients from these (often severe) adverse effects.

Some-one should do some research on the psychology of prescribing by psychiatrists.
Has this been done already?


Full text:

Marketing bipolar treatment
By Andrew J. Manuse/ Daily News Staff
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 – Updated: 12:02 AM EST

WALTHAM — A local research and advisory firm for the pharmaceutical industry found that primary care physicians were influenced more by aggressive marketing of bipolar drugs than psychiatrists. Decision Resources Inc. conducted the study to find out why physicians prescribed certain drugs over others to treat bipolar disorder, according to Alice von Loesecke, senior director at the Waltham-based research and advisory firm. But, in the process of conducting the “Insight Series” survey, researchers found that drug companies’ marketing efforts sometimes had a different effect on general practitioners and specialists, she said.

“The well-informed, very comprehensive marketing, which includes good clinical data, is what (primary care) physicians really pay attention to,” said von Loesecke. Marketing “seemed to be more influential for primary care physicians, but it definitely varied on a drug-by-drug basis.” Psychiatrists usually are dealing with patients who have gone through treatment for their bipolar disorder, and specialists often have more advanced regimens lined up for these patients based on clinical research, she said. Bipolar disorder, or manic-depressive illness, causes unusual shifts in a person’s mood or ability to function that are much more severe than the usual ups and downs that most people experience. There are four major classes of drugs to treat the illness, von Loesecke said: antipsychotics, antiepileptics, antidepressants and mood stabilizers. Marketing efforts tend to work better when the drugs can be used for multiple illnesses, she said, which is the case with the Ortho-McNeil Inc.’s Topamax, an antiepileptic. This line of drugs can also be used to treat epilepsy. The study found that 19 percent of primary care physicians chose to prescribe Topamax due to “pharmaceutical marketing influences,” while only 3 percent of psychiatrists prescribed the drug for the same reason. When there are “nuances” involved with a patient’s symptoms, primary care physicians are more likely to be influenced by effective marketing efforts that “include disease knowledge and awareness,” said von Loesecke.

Yet, there was no disparity in the affect of marketing efforts on specialists and general physicians when it came to the antidepressant, Wellbutrin, she said. Doctors chose GlaxoSmithKline’s Wellbutrin to treat bipolar disorder because it did not cause the weight gain, sexual problems and other side effects usually associated with antidepressants, the report said. Von Loesecke said primary care physicians generally avoid drugs with more side effects, while psychiatrists may be more familiar with treating advanced cases of bipolar disorder and methods for dealing with side effects.

 

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