Medical marketing patients

There are also differing standards between the markets in each of these countries. For instance, the telecom market has vastly different safety requirements than the patient-contact medical market. So, it is important to determine the target market early in the product design process. These market differences will also be included in the lEC standards harmonizing efforts. 

The benzodiazepines that have been most commonly marketed as sedative-hypnotics include temazepam (Restoril), estazolam (ProSom), flurazepam (Dalmane), quazepam (Doral), and triazolam (Halcion). Of these five, temazepam is the most easily metabolized and eliminated. Therefore, temazepam is preferred for elderly and medically ill patients to minimize the risk of drug accumulation. 

Medical marketing is a balancing act between the commercial interests of the Company and the responsibility as the voice of ethics for the Company. However, in the final analysis it is your responsibility as the Medical Advisor to ensure that the interests of and benefit to the health of the patient take precedence over all other considerations. 

To recreate the scene of late-nineteenth-century medicine, it is necessary to place its practice in its proper political-economic context. Prior to World War I, medical practice was a personal service, distributed by physicians, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies for money, to those who could pay for it, and as a charity to those who could not. The physicians income depended solely on the patient s ability and willingness to pay for the services he wanted it was, for all practical purposes, unrelated to the diagnosis the doctor attached to his disease. Like other personal services in a capitalist society, the distribution of medical care was want-based, rationed by the market. Patients willing to pay market prices could receive all the care they wanted, from doctors, nurses, pharmacists, hospitals, sanatoria, spas, and similar establishments, regardless of whether they were sick or not, or whether the service was medically indicated or not. Residing in a hospital in those days was more like staying in a resort today than it is like being hospitalized today. The providers of medical services did not ask the would-be patient whether he needed medical services, just as the providers of resort services do not ask the would-be tourist whether he needs a vacation. 

In general, with the exception of the central role that benzodiazepines play in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal, the use of medications that have been approved for alcoholism rehabilitation remains very limited. A survey of nearly 1,400 addiction physicians showed that they prescribed disulfiram to only 9% of their alcoholic patients and that naltrexone was prescribed for only slightly higher proportion of patients (13%) (Market al. 2003). These tesults contrast with findings for antidepressants, which were prescribed to 44% of alcoholic patients. Although neatly all of these physicians had heatd of both disulfiram and naltrexone, their self-reported level of knowledge of these medications was much lowet than that of antidepressants. 

Tiltabs. Tiltab tablets represent one of the few dosage formulations that has been developed expressly to meet the needs of patients with impaired dexterity [185], Marketed by Smith, Kline French Laboratories, Ltd. in several European countries, the novelty of the Tiltab design is its irregular shape that prevents it from lying flat. Apparently, tablets manufactured in this fashion are easier to handle by those with impaired dexterity. Moreover, these tablets are readily identifiable by patients so that differentiation from other medication is facilitated. Other innovations like this are needed for drug-delivery systems with the particular needs of the geriatric patient in mind. 

There are two ways of looking at these data. On one hand, they indicate that antidepressants only help 16 per cent of the patients to whom they are prescribed. The rest of those who get better would also have gotten better on a placebo. On the other hand, given the popularity of antidepressants, 16 per cent represents a lot of people, and one could well argue that a medication that can help so many people deserves to be marketed. 

Postmarketing surveillance is critical to ensuring the safety of medications because of the limitations of Phase 2 and 3 studies to identify rare, serious adverse events. Typically, these studies are too short and the study population is fairly healthy. Once a drug is marketed, the population of patients using the drug expands to include sicker patients, older patients, and other populations. 

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