The extent to which a patient receives a prescription product varies from drug class to drug class and those classes which have many users/sufferers are most likely to generate a positive return on DTC advertising expenditures.
The following table presents a "Patient Rx Request Sequence" in four different drug classes.
Using Product D as the example, we find that out of 921 allergy sufferers, 29% had at some point asked for
a prescription allergy product; and 17% asked for the product in the past year. Further, 8% indicated that
their request was prompted by an advertisement (Print, TV and/or Radio), and 6% received the allergy product
asked for. Specific to Product D, 1.9% received this allergy drug. The last column shows the average
for the four products presented in this review. Of note is that on average, the request for a product was
prompted by an advertisement 6% of the time and 4% of the time the patient received the product that was
requested. However, receipt for any one product was, on average, 1.6%. If we assume that these last
two percentages could be applied to most therapeutic classes based on the finding that response rates
do not vary significantly across classes, it follows that products which compete in markets which have
many users/sufferers are far more likely to generate a positive return on DTC advertising expenditures
while small markets might not produce the number of new users required to cover advertising costs.
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