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Are senior doctors who help drug companies sell their drugs independent experts or just drug representatives in disguise, asks Ray Moynihan from the University of Newcastle in Australia, in the British Medical Journal. Moynihan exposes the reality behind the practice with some candid revelations from industry insiders. Pharmaceutical companies regularly sponsor leading specialists with “generous fees to peddle influence” and promote drugs to the profession and the public, writes Moynihan. Drug companies will pay influential doctors up to $400 an hour to act as key opinion leaders, and some doctors earn more than $25,000 a year in advisory fees. Kimberly Elliot, a former award-winning drug company sales representative interviewed by Moynihan, reveals that drug companies desperately need key opinion leaders in order for doctors to believe what they are saying and prescribe their products, because drug representatives are often not believed. Essentially, she says, key opinion leaders are just salespeople. |
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Posted by Ed H.