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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.

A growing number of physicians are expressing interest in working in the pharmaceutical industry. Many are motivated by the desire to get as far away from managed clinical care as possible. Others want to broaden their sphere of influence in healthcare-to move from treating one patient at a time to helping an entire patient population. Still others are excited by the chance to participate in well funded cutting-edge innovation or are influenced by colleagues who have moved into pharmaceutical medicine and are vocal about their enhanced career satisfaction.

A new approach to setting goals

Americans who live in the suburbs fare significantly better in many key health measures than those who live in the most rural and most urban areas.

Nonprofit nursing homes provide better care and more nursing care than investor-owned homes, according to a survey of over 13,500 homes nationwide.

The Chicago-based American Medical Association has launched an educational effort to raise awareness of ethical guidelines regarding promotional gifts from medical industry representatives. The 18-month initiative will target physicians, medical students and sales representatives from pharmaceutical, medical device and equipment companies, asking them to comply with guidelines published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1991 (see sidebar) by the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.

Researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health have found that an inexpensive program that trains primary care providers to work with patients and mental health specialists to diagnose and properly treat depression can reduce the time that participating patients spend clinically depressed. Over a two-year period, the program reduced the duration of participating patients' depression by well over a month. The training program cost less than $500 per depressed patient and increased the time that the depressed patients spent employed during that two-year period by about four work weeks.

A new report suggests that the most efficient way to increase health insurance coverage is to target subsidies toward low-income workers.

High-tech scanning methods, such as magnetic resonance imaging, and innovations to treat cardiovascular disease were ranked as highly important to the care of patients in a survey of 225 primary care physicians published in Health Affairs (vol. 20, no. 5). At the bottom of the list was bone marrow transplant.

As pharmaceutical companies rely more on sales representatives, reps say they need more training to help them in their jobs.

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance have posted the largest increase since 1992, according to an annual survey of employer health benefit plans.

Everyone makes mistakes, but it's learning from them, and changing the way we do what we do, that make us successful.

There is a great need (and an opportunity) to help younger physicians during the crucial beginning of their careers.

Managed care medical directors named Philadelphia-based GlaxoSmithKline the top pharmaceutical company for overall service, according to the spring 2001 Managed Care Medical Director Promotional Audit from Newtown, PA-based Scott-Levin.

According to a study conducted by Columbia University economist Frank R. Lichtenberg, pharmaceutical innovation is paying off for American consumers by improving the quality of their lives, and for payers by lowering total healthcare expenditures.

Thirteen editors of some of the world's most influential medical journals have announced that they will be developing new standards to address possible conflicts of interest between journal authors and third-party groups like drug companies and medical device manufacturers.

Government and industry have shown they can work together to deal with a national disaster.

Franklin Lakes, New Jersey-Merck’s pharmacy benefit arm, Merck-Medco, is under fire for switching patients to more expensive pharmaceuticals.

Rio de Janeiro-The Brazilian health ministry will use its $35 million a year in savings on Roche’s newly discounted AIDS therapy to fund a program aimed at providing non-AIDS medicines to low-income families.

t's 4 pm on Friday. The board of directors has just made an important decision and wants to announce it over the weekend. The challenge? Publish an English-language version on the company's global Web portals immediately. The problem? It's the weekend and offices around the world are about to close. In the past, that meant hunkering down for a weekend of e-mails to coordinate the effort, but now there is a better solution. After writing the document in Microsoft Word, the sender simply clicks on a special menu item, "Publish to Portals," and off it goes. Confirming dialogue boxes allow

Lagos, Nigeria-FDA refused to confirm or deny that it was launching a criminal investigation into Pfizer’s conduct during a 1996 clinical trial for Trovan (alatrofloxacin) in Nigerian patients.

Efforts to craft a Medicare pharmacy benefit may be sidelined by repercussions from the September attack.

During the next few years of economic and political turbulence, the pharmaceutical industry should cut through the waves like a sturdy ship, creating very little disturbance to its occupants. Some rough water- a prescription drug benefit and generic competition for blockbuster products-is expected, but the industry's ability to expand its markets in a steadily aging population will drive continued growth.

Driven somewhat by the HRT controversy and the growing population of postmenopausal women, the expanding osteo market made room for Eli Lilly's Evista (raloxifene), the first-in-class SERM. According to Dr. Leo Plouffe, Lilly's medical director of US women's health and reproductive medicine, the company has launched a series of clinical trials examining Evista's preventive effects against breast cancer and heart disease in women. And in another bold move, Lilly recently launched its groundbreaking Evista Alendronate Comparison (EVA) study, a head-to-head clinical trial comparing Evista with Fosamax for osteoporosis prevention and treatment and their relative efficacy in reducing risks of heart disease and breast cancer.

Basel-A series of product approvals in recent weeks could go some way to compensate for setbacks in Novartis’ pipeline. The approvals came as the Swiss company reported healthy half-year figures and an 11 percent sales increase.

New York City—In response to the recent terrorist attack in its home city, Pfizer pledged nearly $10 million in aid.

PMs must be ready to speak to the media at a moment’s notice—and have something to say.

London-European cancer patients are losing out because current processes for reviewing treatments are "dire," says the Cancer Research Campaign.

Coined in the early 1940s, the hybrid term "biotech" has sustained its save-the-world aura and futurist allure. During the industry's nascent years, Amgen, Genentech, and other barrier-breaking companies were mere fledgling operations with products still in the pure science phase and their only "revenue" the hope of curing some of the world's ills.

Mumbai, India—The controversy over pharma companies’ incentives to pharmacists in India highlights just how competitive the Indian pharma industry has become.