Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Classic Marketing
The family that sold OxyContin to the American public used classic pharmaceutical marketing techniques -- medical spokespersons, giveaways, detail men, studies, etc. There was nothing novel about the methods. That the pills were addictive was de-emphasized in favor of pain management. In fact, the drug was marketed as non-addictive for some time. Purdue was able to get away with this fraudulent behavior because it is a private company with little public oversight other than the FDA. The Food and Drug Administration failed to understand the dangers of the drug and let Purdue have free rein in selling the pills. Now the US is in the middle of an addiction epidemic brought on by abuse of OxyContin. It is serious and people are dying from overdoses across the US. The lesson here is that pharmaceutical marketing in itself isn't bad, but the misuse of it can be devastating.
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