Drug companies in rat race to ‘buy doctors’

Local pharmaceutical companies are engaged in an intense battle to persuade physicians with costly gifts to prescribe their drugs for patients as the growing drug and health business in Bangladesh is witnessing a fierce competition.
Marketing experts of the pharmaceutical companies told New Age that 20 leading drug manufacturers set aside at least 10 per cent of their annual profits to manage the doctors with gifts ranging from costly mobile sets to posh apartments.
Funding overseas trips is another useful promotional tool for the marketing experts to win favour of reputed physicians without which survival of a company is difficult in a market the size of which has already crossed $500 million with at least a 10 per cent annual growth rate.
Marketing experts jokingly call it ‘doctor buying’ ploy which has been in practice in Bangladesh since early 1900s.
But by this time, the competition has reached fever pitch with pharmaceutical companies offering the doctors cash even on a daily basis in busy private hospitals and clinics in Dhaka.
Health experts observed that the growing unethical practice by drug manufacturers was creating an ‘ugly competition’ which could lead to indiscipline in the sector.
Consumers will have to bear the brunt of such unhealthy competition as prices of medicines would go up for rising production costs and such additional expenses on ‘doctor buying’, they said.
Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries secretary general Abdul Muktadir, however, sought to allay such fears saying that the consumers would rather be benefited as the manufacturers would be forced to produce quality drugs and sell their products at reasonable prices.
He also denied the allegation of an ugly competition among drug companies. ‘No doubt, it is an intense competition which is not unusual in a free market economy,’ he said.
Dr Zafarullah Chowdhury, a founder member of Gonoshasthaya Kendra, observed it was purely bribe in the name of promotional activities of physicians. He pointed out that only the government could stop such unethical practice by controlling medicine prices by after forming a price control committee that will include Consumer Association members.
He also suggested that the government should close down the production of so many unnecessary drugs that are flooding the market. Pharmaceutical companies manufacture and market them with the help of physicians to maximise their profit.
Shah Monir Hossain, director general of heath services, told New Age, ‘Time has come to think about the promotional issues seriously.’ He advised the government policymakers to review the marketing policies of neighbouring countries to streamline the competition.
He said physicians in India strictly go by the rules and do not prescribe any brands of medicines in any hospital. They prescribe generic drugs there, he said.
A marketing manager of a company said the situation was not so favourable for physicians even a decade ago when the pharmaceutical companies had not spent a substantial amount on marketing.
Rapport building, providing low-priced electronic gifts and holding doctors’ conferences in an expensive restaurant were enough for sales representatives to persuade physicians.
A survey conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in 2008 revealed that the turnover of the country’s privately-run healthcare operators had jumped seven times in as many years – from Tk 302 crore in 1997-08 to Tk 2,040 crore in 2005-06.
The number of private healthcare firms rose to 4,015 in 2005-06 from 2,003 in 1997-98.
Drug administration director general Abul Kalam Azad insisted that the organisation had no chance to interfere with marketing strategies of drug companies.
‘We look after the quality of the medicines produced here or imported from foreign countries,’ he said.
Azad, however, observed that there should be at least a policy for marketing because of growing allegations of malpractices by drug producers to persuade the physicians.

Courtesy of NewAge