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Reminds me of the old joke where a CEO says: "I know I'm wasting half of the money I spend on marketing. The trouble is, I don't know which half."

> Do you really need much marketing to sell a life saving drug?

Didn't we just read an article here about how doctors don't/can't keep up on all the research?

In that environment, it makes sense to spend money to get the drug in front of doctors (drug salespeople) and their patients (TV ads.)

Unless that is exactly what has overwhelmed their ability to make sense of what's available: they ignore new drugs as a protection mechanism against marketing-driven information which is less correlated with efficacy and more correlated with money.

In that environment, you need better resources for doctors to keep up with research, based on clinical requirements. And that is very very far from what marketing does.

Jesus fucking christ if you're relying on adverts for medical education of your clinicians they system is horribly broken.

I suspect most of the marketing money goes to drugs drugs you might want but don't actually need. Allergy medications, pain pills, and pecker perkers.