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http://www.pharmalive.com/social-media- ... d-novartis

Aren't you glad to see how two of our big time MS drug makers are spending their money these days in an attempt to gain that all important market share.

Harry

According to the link you posted, it's only Novartis that's spending money on advertising due to the death of a patient last year.

bifrostlake wrote:According to the link you posted, it's only Novartis that's spending money on advertising due to the death of a patient last year.

Please don't think that Biogen is sitting back and watching all of this happen. They have one of the most effective marketing/sales departments out there. The shift of only a couple perentage points in market share in this business translates into millions of dollars of revenue loss/gain. You only need look at how much money they have made from Tysabri despite its escalating dangers of side effects to understand how well they can market a drug that causes so many problems in MS patients.

Harry

Of course Biogen is spending money on advertising ALL of their drugs! But Novartis is spending money on an extensive ad campaign for just Gilenya. From the link:

"[T]he drugmaker recently began pushing an aggressive advertising campaign aimed at younger patients and also began sponsoring lunches at restaurants around the country where patients and caregivers can learn more about its pill."

The New York Times even wrote about it as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/busin ... .html?_r=0

I haven't seen Teficdera advertised anywhere outside of MS-related magazines.

As far as Tysabri is concerned, Biogen withdrew it from the market shortly after 3 people developed PML during a Phase III trial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalizumab#Legal_status It was MSers who petitioned the FDA to bring it back because they were willing to take the risk of PML to get the benefits: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/busin ... ref=slogin And haven't you seen their current ads? They're not hiding the fact that PML is a risk of Tysabri in the fine print.

Both these companies are spending millions and millions of dollars (more on marketing/sales than on actual research) to try and gain a share of the MS market. Novartis is of course pushing Gilenya because it is their new MS drug. Biogen works in different ways....they spend a lot of time sending reps to the neuros often several times a month. They offer "incentives" to the docs to get them to rx their drugs as opposed to the competitors. They also are known to make claims on their promotion literature which isn't true and have been fined by the FDA on more than one occasion for doing so. But when they look at the revenue involved, it's the cost of doing business.

The "shortly after" period when Tysabri was withdrawn by Biogen was done to give their top execs time to sell their stocks and make millions. Their chief lawyer was charged for insider trading because of this. Biogen sat on the PML information for over a week before they made it public. So much for being totally concerned for the health of MS patients!!

Yes, Tysabri patients petitioned to get the drug re-approved. But remember back then that Biogen told us the PML risk was only 1:2000 and you had to have taken another DMD to have the PML danger. This was after they initially told everyone the drug was safe. I'm not going to go into the escalating risk of Tysabri and PML over the past few years but the risk has gone up to 1:100 and the risk level continues to climb each month. And that's just for PML. There are thousdands of other patients who have suffered a myriad of other complications with this drug yet we see the docs using it as a first line drug for patients who have MS. Please look at some of the other recent threads about Tysabri on this forum and you'll get a good idea of just how dangerous this medication is becoming.

Yes Biogen has had to update the label on Tysabri because of all these problems. But the drug is till being pushed on to the docs and patients without all the proper caution. And that is but one reason that the lawsuits are starting to appear against Biogen.

Harry