Pharma Digital Investment is Increasing, But Still Only 3-6% of the Total Promotional Spend

Every year I get a call from a market analyst asking me what the trend is for digital marketing spending in the pharmaceutical industry. He wants to know if the profits of health websites, which depend on drug display ads, will increase or decrease next year.

Who am I to judge?

I only report the data I glean from various sources. For example, recent data from IMS Health Global Pharmaceuticals Marketing Channel Reference indicates that worldwide pharmaceutical industry investment (i.e., spending) in sales force and marketing channels was nearly $71 billion in 2014 - a drop in 1.4% from 2013. BUT... the digital channel investment increased 32%!

Source: IMS Health. Click on image for an enlarged, readable view.

However, spending on digital channels accounts for only $2.3bn or 3.2% of the total $71 billion promotional spend worldwide.

Let's dive a bit deeper into the data and compare it to other estimates over the years.

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The Value of Medical Content Channels According to HCPs vs Pharma Professionals

A study conducted from July – August 2015 by EPG Health Media, publisher of epgonline.org (a website for healthcare professionals) found some "significant gaps and imbalances" between how healthcare professionals (HCPs) and pharma industry professionals (Pharma) view the value of medical content delivery channels.

Keep in mind that the results are based on a very limited number of survey participants, which include 216 HCPs and 137 pharmaceutical industry professionals (66 pharmaceutical professionals and 71 service providers).

I selected a few channels to look at (mostly digital) and replotted the data in the following chart, which shows the percent of respondents (HCPs v. Pharma) who consider that the channels have moderate or significant value for HCPs.

Click on image for an enlarged view.

What are the key takeaways from this study?

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Some “Walter White” Pharma Sales Reps Make an “Ungodly” Amount of Money

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is back on HBO and the pharmaceutical industry was the centerpiece of last night's show in which Oliver spent more than 17 minutes educating the audience on the industry's marketing practices.

Oliver began by citing some statistics such as annual sales of Rx drugs in America amount to over $1,000 per person. "Walter White could have made more money cooking up arthritis medications," quipped Oliver.

I'm not sure arthritis is where the real pharma money is these days -- maybe orphan drugs (see here and here) or cancer drugs (see here), certainly Hep C drugs (see here) are where the real money is.

Oliver focuses mostly on physician marketing and pharma sales reps. He begins by showing segments from direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads, all of which end with the phrase "ask your doctor," which of course is often the butt of jokes (see, for example, here).

"Oliver says Big Pharma wants you to talk to your doctor," says Time, "because they have spent billions of dollars marketing their drugs to physicians. Oliver’s research revealed that pharmaceutical companies spent $24 billion marketing directly to doctors last year. According to one study quoted by Oliver, 9 out of 10 top drugmakers spent more on marketing drugs than researching the drugs. In Oliver’s words, 'Drug companies are like high school boyfriends: they are more interested in getting inside you than in being effective once they are there.'"

I've written about many of the issues that Oliver speaks about in his segment and I will provide the back stories below. There was one thing in this segment, however, that stood out for me. It was a claim made by a GSK executive in a 2001 Advair launch video that the Department of Justice uploaded to its website as part of a whistleblower suit.

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