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Discovering Your Soul Mission : How to Use Karmic Astrology to Create the Life You Want
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	Big Pharma Marketing Itself Out of Business? by Werner Knoepp
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

Big Pharma
Marketing Itself Out of Business?
by Werner Knoepp

MARKETING STRATEGY BACKFIRES.

During the four year period between 1999 and 2003, thousands of Eli Lilly sales representatives converged on primary care physicians urging them to prescribe the Lilly drug Zyprexa for dementia. They bolstered this marketing effort with calls on nursing homes and assisted living facilities. A catchy slogan was devised to help peddle this anti-psychotic drug for treating the elderly, whether they needed it or not. Five milligrams at 5 pm became "five at five" to help dementia patients and others sleep. The sales reps were taught to shrug off the weight gain caused by the drug as having a "therapeutic benefit."

As a result of this high powered marketing effort, Eli Lilly made hundreds of millions of dollars. It was a mighty effort at expanding the market for a drug designed and approved for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and it paid off handsomely. Zyprexia had never been approved for dementia, but why worry about a minor detail like that? Doctors can prescribe drugs for unapproved uses.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that it addresses only half of the picture. The other half is that drug manufacturers are not allowed to market their products for unapproved uses. In an uncharacteristic, and surprising move, the FDA came down on Lilly. Hard! The FDA filed civil and criminal actions against the company.

The case was cut and dried. Lilly agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of introducing misbranded drugs to interstate commerce and to pay $615 million to resolve the case. The resolution of the civil case cost them another $ 800 million, wiping out the gains this marketing effort had made and considerably more. But peanuts for a company drawing down more than $ 4 billion a year from the legitimate sales of Zyprexa. So why worry?

The Lilly incident is a microcosm of what is going on in the drug business today. Drug manufacturers have lost sight of their primary reason for existence - to develop and produce new and better medications. Instead, they have been focusing on expanding the market for their already existing drugs and pushing their research and development efforts aside. There is no profit in research.

The January 7, 2008 issue of Science Daily has published a report of a study showing that Big Pharma spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development. Also, the number of meetings for promotional purposes has increased from 120,000 in 1998 to 371,000 in 2004, further supporting the contention that the pharmaceutical industry is primarily market driven. It all boils down to the fact that the industry is much more interested in pushing pills than it is in developing new product.

NOT A TIME TO BUY PHARM STOCK!

All of this leads to a grim prognosis for the industry. The drug business is barreling full speed to crashing into a wall! Some of the top selling drugs in the industry are about to become history as their patents expire, beginning heavily in 2010. Generic drugs are poised to rush in to replace them. It won't be difficult.

According to the Dec 6, 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal, typical margins of patented drugs are 90% to 95%. Generic drugs coming in can be priced much much lower and it won't take them long to dominate the market. With the industry's science engine stalled, the century old approach to developing drugs to treat diseases is producing fewer and fewer of them.

ALTERNATIVES POISED TO REPLACE THE CHEMICALS

The situation is aggravated by the onslaught of Alternative Medicine, which is receiving increasingly accelerated acceptance. Patients are becoming ever more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, and as a result, less accepting and less prone to follow along with the standard allopathic approach to treating disease with chemicals.

With few new drugs coming on the market and patent expiration looming, pharmaceutical companies are reorganizing. Many will be in new businesses. Richard Evans, former Wall Street Analyst and now a pharmaceutical consultant states flatly, "The era that created the pharmaceutical industry is in fact over."

All of this is of little consequence to the fans of alternative medicine. For years these folks have been grousing about the dominance of Big Pharma as they resisted the chemicals, surgery, and other dangerous and toxic procedures forced on them in place of safer, more natural and often more effective methods of treatment. To them, Big Pharma is meeting its well deserved demise and good riddance, thank you.

There will always be a need for chemicals to treat some disorders, and drugs like antibiotics are indispensable. But the undeniable fact is that drugs have been overproduced, overmarketed, and overused and the time has come to usher in a new era of enlightenment along with the shrinkage of an overblown industry to its more appropriate dimension.

(c) 2009 Werner Knoepp, All rights reserved.

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Last updated January 21st, 2009

Interpreting Tarot -- Reading the Book of Life
By
Rebecca Brents

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The Way of Woman : Awakening the Perennial Feminine
By
Helen M. Luke