More doctors go online for drug information

Growing use of technology has pharmaceutical companies planning to spend more money on Internet marketing, but don't expect detail reps to disappear yet.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Sept. 8, 2003.

About 49% of the country's practicing physicians routinely go online to access informational services offered or sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, up from 35% a year ago, according to a survey by Manhattan Research LLC.

Of the 570,000 practicing physicians in the country, 279,000, up from 201,000 in early 2002, are accessing pharmaceutical information services online, which the New York-based research firm broadly defines as online continuing medical education, electronic detailing and drug references.

The survey finding suggests that online pharmaceutical marketing is not a small market, and that pharmaceutical companies will likely pour more dollars to that area as they try to figure out how to add the Internet as another tool in their marketing arsenal, said Manhattan Research President Mark Bard.

At this time, drug companies spend only a fraction of their marketing budgets on online marketing. Over a 12-month period ending in May 2003, the industry spent $14.3 billion marketing to physicians. Of that, 1.5%, or a little more than $214 million, went toward online marketing, according to Verispan, a Yardley, Pa., pharmaceutical market research company.

"Most of the pharmaceutical companies I've spoken with are talking about increasing [e-detailing investment] twofold or threefold," said Elizabeth W. Boehm, an analyst at Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass.

"It's only logical that they are going to look for ways to use that medium as a new way to approach physicians" because a majority of doctors, like the general public, use the Internet on a daily basis, said Michael S. Goldrich, chair of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. Under the AMA's guidelines on gifts from pharmaceutical companies, doctors cannot accept cash, but may accept noncash gifts valued at less than $100 as long as they are medically relevant and of potential benefit to patients.