Physicians' Persistence and its Implications for Their Response to Promotion of Prescription Drugs

Management Science, 2007

32 Pages Posted: 25 Sep 2007

See all articles by Ramkumar Janakiraman

Ramkumar Janakiraman

North Carolina State University - Department of Business Management

Shantanu Dutta

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business

Catarina Sismeiro

Imperial College London, Tanaka Business School

Philip Stern

Loughborough University

Abstract

Motivated by the medical literature findings that physicians are inertial, we seek to understand (1) whether physicians exhibit structural persistence in drug choice (structural persistence occurs when the drug chosen for a patient depends structurally on the drug previously prescribed by the physician to other patients), and (2) whether persistence, if present, is a physician specific characteristic or a physician state that can change over time. We further explore the role of promotional tools on persistence and drug choice, and we investigate whether physicians who exhibit persistence respond differently to three forms of sales promotion: one-to-one meetings (detailing), out-of-office meetings, and symposium meetings.

Our results show significant levels of physician persistence in drug choice. We find that persistence is mostly a cross-sectional physician feature. Non-persistent physicians appear to be responsive to detailing and symposium meetings, whereas persistent physicians seem to be responsive only to symposium meetings. Out-of-office meetings, such as golf or lunch, have no effect on physicians' drug choice. We also find that (1) older physicians and those who work in smaller practices are more likely to be persistent, and (2) physicians who are more willing to receive sales force representatives have a lower likelihood of being persistent. Finally, we discuss implications for public policy from our rich set of results.

Keywords: Pharmaceuticals, Physician decision making, State dependence, choice models

Suggested Citation

Janakiraman, Ramkumar and Dutta, Shantanu and Sismeiro, Catarina and Stern, Philip, Physicians' Persistence and its Implications for Their Response to Promotion of Prescription Drugs. Management Science, 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1016602

Ramkumar Janakiraman

North Carolina State University - Department of Business Management ( email )

Raleigh, NC 27695
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/ncsu.edu/ram

Shantanu Dutta

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business ( email )

Hoffman Hall 701
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1427
United States
213-740-5038 (Phone)
213-740-7828 (Fax)

Catarina Sismeiro (Contact Author)

Imperial College London, Tanaka Business School ( email )

South Kensington Campus
Exhibition Road
London, Greater London SW7 2AZ
United Kingdom

Philip Stern

Loughborough University ( email )

Loughborough, LE11 3TU
United Kingdom

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