Drug Company Demand Generation

Interesting bit on Marketplace earlier on the demand generation of drug companies. The interesting part here is that I don't think the drug companies are doing anything really wrong. Yes, they're coming out with studies that accentuate (in the public eye) problems that their drugs will help solve. In this case, people are tired and don't get enough sleep. So they propose their drug which does help solve the problem. Ok, a teeny little bit grey (on the quality of the research) but this is not world ending. The fact is, though, some people DO have trouble sleeping and, to the extent that this helps them, the drug is a GOOD thing. Those people no longer have that problem.

Here's the detailed article. I think to the extent that real critique or coverage of a drug is in any way stifled, that is a Bad Thing(tm). But just posting your results and letting people know that you have something out there that helps whatever problem your results point to is pretty low on the evil scale.

Further, this line from the piece:

This doesn’t mean that news executives consider such income when they make story assignments, but in places where the wall between the news side and the business side has weakened, the temptations are stronger than ever.

Technically, it is accurate; the temptation is stronger than ever. But I worry that it is a scare tactic... yes, it requires very little for a piece to go from negative to neutral or get killed (which may or may not have anything to do with the advertising budget) but, to my knowledge, there's very little proof of a wide spread epidemic of stories being killed. I suppose this is why more openness in public media is a Good Thing(tm).

D