The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7445 p368
31 March 2007

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• Pseudoephedrine (3)
• Dispensing
• Remote supervision
• White Paper (3)
• Product promotion
• Children's medicines

Letters to the Editor

Product promotion

New method for promoting products?

From Mr N. P. Stidolph, MRPharmS

Having qualified in 1958, I have seen a number of changes in the practice of pharmacy but one aspect regarding the promotion of new products seems to invite comment, or perhaps it is my imagination.

I seem to remember that the procedure when coming up with a new product, or moving the hydroxyl radical around on an old one, was to select a sample of GPs, ask them to carry out final trials on relevant patients, issue them with computers to aid assessment and send them all off to Bermuda for a product conference. This practice may have been frowned upon.

The method today seems to be to find a photogenic patient and a compliant journalist who will demand to know why those horrible people at the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence are delaying the issue of a licence for this “breakthrough” in medical science which will save “millions” of lives, solely on the spurious grounds that it is only halfway through clinical trials, costs a fortune and will only work on about 12 people in the UK.

As I said, perhaps I am imagining it.

N. P. Stidolph
Bognor Regis, West Sussex

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