Melissa Healy in a series of articles published in the Los Angeles Times, discusses direct and indirect marketing by the pharmaceutical industry and its effect on prescription drug sales.

With a 2006 marketing budget of $28 billion, sales of prescription drugs have reached an all-time high. Among the reasons cited are an aging population, an increase in chronic disease associated with the rise in obesity, and pharmaceutical industry marketing practices.

Dr. Andrew Leuchter, head of a University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) committee convened to redraft guidelines for physicians’ interactions with pharmaceutical companies reported, “They (physicians) ask, ‘Do you really think that my medical decision-making can be influenced by the fact that someone bought me a pizza?’ ”

He added, “They’re quite sobered, when confronted with the mounting pile of evidence that it can.”

According to Healy, the makers of the nations’s bestselling drugs field on average 4,000 sales representatives and spend more than $1 billion per year to market to physicians alone. She cites a Dartmouth College study released in 2001 that tracked 391 drugs and company marketing budgets and computed return on investment. For every dollar spent on advertising in medical journals, five dollars in sales were generated.

Says Healy, “In short, marketing works.”

Healy’s final article in the series, “And now, a push for change,” chronicles current efforts by state and federal legislators to restrict the drug industry’s pervasive influence in healthcare. It should come as no surprise that these efforts have been met with resistance by the pharmaceutical industry and some physicians.

“Gosh darnit, what did you guys expect?” says Healy.