Pharmaceutical Executive-11-01-2001

Government efforts to trim budgets has put the spotlight on unethical pharma marketing tactics.

Sampling is a sales rep's foot in the door to doctors' offices and the quickest way to get products into consumers' hands. That's why reps handed out $5 billion worth of the freebies last year, spending 30 percent of companies' promotional budgets in the process. Despite that huge investment, few product managers can assess its impact on product inventory, consumer demand, prescription rates, or market share. But sampling's greatest failure is its inability to provide the healthcare industry with product-use or patient data.