Insights: A drug company’s plan to influence doctors

Sep 2, 2009 11:22 AM

In another striking example of how drug manufacturers pour millions of dollars into promoting their latest drugs to influence doctors’ prescribing habits, details of a marking plan for the popular antidepressant drug, Lexapro*, were revealed yesterday in publicly released documents, according to a New York Times article on the topic.

The plan, released by the Senate Special Committee on Aging, shows how Lexapro’s drug manufacturer, Forest Laboratories, planned to dole out $36 million to provide lunch to doctors, which the company saw as a marketing opportunity, and another $34.7 million to pay psychiatrists and primary care doctors to deliver thousands of marketing lectures.

The business plan also states that the company planned to use educational seminars for doctors as an opportunity to inform them about Lexapro. The committee has been looking into whether the pharmaceutical industry is using its funding of medical education classes an opportunity to market drugs to physicians, the Times reports.

While it’s impossible to know what kind of influence Forest’s plan had on doctors, it’s clear that Lexapro is enjoying healthy sales. The drug racked up $2.3 billion in 2008.

The catch is that Lexapro is an expensive brand-name drug that studies show is no better than less costly generic antidepressants. Our free Best Buy Drugs report on antidepressants recommends the generic forms of bupropion, citalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, or sertraline as good first initial options. These are as equally as effective and safe and cost between $21 and $88 for a month’s supply, depending on the dose needed, compared to $119-$123 for Lexapro.

To learn more about antidepressants and our recommendations if you need one of these drugs, click here to read our free Best Buy Drugs report. The report discusses that studies have shown the generic antidepressants are just as effective and safe as expensive brand-name drugs and how choosing a generic could save you thousands of dollars a year.

—Steve Mitchell, associate editor, Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs

If you've been diagnosed with depression, take a look at some questions you should ask your doctor and find out whether talk therapy or drug treatments work best (subscribers only). And for our take on the ad for the depression drug Abilify, watch our latest AdWatch video.

*links to PDF