Pharma’s Terrible Secret: Companies Spend the Most to Promote Their Least Helpful Drugs

January 8, 2015

(Vox) – The story is a deep dive into data about what pharmaceutical companies spend on marketing their new products. What it shows is that drug makers devote the largest share of their spending doctor interactions (things like meals and visits) trying to sell doctors on prescribing “me-too” drugs: pills that essentially do the same thing as another drug already on the market.