E-detailing? Digitized sales force? No thank you. Apparently the push towards the modernization of medical-scientific information does not please healthcare professionals, who prefer a 'live' operator to learn more about a new medicine, rather than a cold PC screen.
These are the results of a survey conducted by Digitas Health and the Economist Intelligence Unit. Data varies by market but, on average, half of the 450 physicians surveyed in Europe, China, India and Latin America cite drug sales representatives as a preferred source for data on new therapies. In second place are conferences (49%), then independent sources on the internet (36%), company emails (34%), colleagues (31%) and traditional mail (22%). Even in the UK, a market that has always been 'pharma-skeptical', the 42% of the 'white coats' confirmed that he preferred to obtain information on new drugs from the ISF, while the 44% said he would like the data to arrive via company emails. The Chinese, on the other hand, are the least 'Isf-friendly', with just 18% expressing a preference for live informants and only 6% interested in industry emails about new drugs.
However, this does not mean that outside the United States, health professionals are against digital communications: only a quarter of all respondents judged them useless.
Barbara Di Chiara – April 19, 2011 – Pharmakronos
