Abstract
In the United States, drug sampling has been one of the most important marketing practices adopted in the pharmaceutical industry. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry delivered an estimated $18.4 billion worth (in retail value) of free drug samples to doctors in year 2005 alone – more than all other marketing expenses combined. Although sampling, as a marketing tool, has been studied in the marketing literature, especially for consumer package goods; sampling in the pharmaceutical industry is very special due to the constraints that drug samples cannot be legally dispensed directly from the manufacturers to consumers. This creates a unique environment in which doctors play “gatekeeper and decision maker” role in dispensing samples to patients.
In this chapter, we first discuss the current industry practice of pharmaceutical sampling in detail, focusing on the following seven topics: (1) why samples are used; (2) the regulations governing pharmaceutical sampling; (3) sample decision support practice in pharmaceutical industry; (4) how drug samples are delivered to physicians; (5) how samples are consumed or dispensing pathway; (6) how samples are used in treating patients; and (7) the concept of “Source of Business” and how it is related to sample usage. We then discuss various sources of data that can be used for research on pharmaceutical sampling. After that, we review the academic research as well as industry studies on the effects of samples on pharmaceutical sales. Lastly, we close the chapter with directions for future research for both practitioners and academic researchers.
The authors Xiaojing Dong, Michael Li, and Ying Xie have contributed equally to this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
Free drug samples can be provided to Stanford’s pharmacy to be used in free clinics.
- 2.
The ImpactRx data is collected from its physician panel; therefore, the prescriptions are “written” by physicians but may not be “dispensed” through pharmacies which have certain degree of prescription switching power. To distinguish from the normally used “dispensed” prescription data obtained from pharmacy audit, ImpactRx uses “written” prescription measure.
- 3.
Extended sample unit represents basic unit of a sample package such as tablets, capsules, grams, tubes, and bottles. Since extended units for any products can represent a variety of forms, these data cannot be logically summed up beyond product/form/strength level.
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Dong, X., Li, M., Xie, Y. (2014). Understanding Sample Usage and Sampling as a Promotion Tool: State of Industry Practice and Current Research. In: Ding, M., Eliashberg, J., Stremersch, S. (eds) Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry. International Series in Quantitative Marketing, vol 20. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7801-0_17
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