The secret scheme to get you paying out-of-pocket for more and more drugs

Looks like Big Pharma is trying real hard to get rid of the “middleman.”

That guy — the one who spent years in medical school, years in practice, and who knows you inside and out — who needs him anyway?

Certainly not all those drug makers.

So each and every drug company is hoping to catch the gravy train known as the Rx-to-OTC switch. A way to keep their drugs selling even better. And all without needing that doctor to give you a prescription.

An industry newsletter just put out an eBook giving advice about the “marketing strategy” to make that switch.

It had lots of buzz words, most about the money to be made, and then there was this.

As the “population ages,” it says, and the “levels” of all sorts of diseases are increasing, drugmakers are getting lots of “pushback” on the cost of their drugs.

So here’s the solution:

Put “the cost burden directly on consumers.” Why, that would save the healthcare systems “billions.”

It even quotes a study showing how switching an Rx drug for respiratory infections to an OTC version will save the U.S. almost $5 billion a year. (But that $5 billion has to come from somewhere…)

The head of Sanofi’s consumer healthcare division agrees wholeheartedly. “Healthcare payers are struggling to contain their budgets,” he says, and bringing new OTC drugs to market will give them “financial relief.”

And these kind-hearted drug manufacturers are also worrying about your doctor, too.

Why he’s “wasting precious office time” on your “chronic condition” that you can certainly manage on your own.

Notice there’s no part of their strategy where you’re actually cured and don’t need their drugs. Just that you don’t need to burden your doctor or your insurance company when the clerk at Walgreens is there 24 hours.

Sources:
“Making the switch from Rx to OTC” FiercePharma, November, 2014, fiercemarkets.com