TDL Brief: Pharmaceutical Companies
Pharmaceutical companies face a great deal of criticism, often being characterized as an industry far more interested in profit than helping people. However, at least on a basic level, their role is to discover, develop and produce drugs to try and improve patients’ health. These days, medical interventions are evolving beyond the administration of drugs – people’s problematic or unhealthy behaviors need to be tackled in order to reduce the number of people who actually need pharmaceutical drugs. As a result, pharmaceutical companies are expanding their horizons to better capture the complexity of the field of health and medicine where the biological, psychological and behavioral all intersect.
There is one specific behavior that pharmaceutical companies have to deal with: addiction. Unfortunately, many patients who are originally prescribed certain medication go on to become addicted. As humans are prone to an illusion of control, where we believe we have greater control over events than we do, we are not prepared for how pharmaceutical drugs might negatively impact our habits and behaviors. Pharmaceutical companies need to be aware of this in order to help avoid propagating addiction epidemic and avoiding liability in lawsuits.
But it is not just addiction that challenges the work that pharmaceutical companies are doing. Human biases also mean that people aren’t taking their prescribed medicine when it would be beneficial for their health. Pharmaceutical companies also need to understand what motivates human behavior in order to best market their products in a manner that will encourage people to fulfill their course-of-action.
References
- Zipfel, P. (2019, September 17). Assessing provider (and patient) motivation. Pharma Phorum. https://pharmaphorum.com/views-and-analysis/assessing-provider-and-patient-motivation/
- McCaffrey, K. (2017, April 5). How Pharma marketers are using behavioral science. Medical Marketing and Media. https://www.mmm-online.com/home/channel/commercial/how-pharma-marketers-are-using-behavioral-science/
- Lubick, N. (2010). Drugs in the environment: Do pharmaceutical take-back programs make a difference? Environmental Health Perspectives, 118(5), 210-214. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.118-a210
- Osborne, K. (2019, April 19). Could behavioral science crack non-adherence? Reuters Events. https://www.reutersevents.com/pharma/patients-and-medical/could-behavioral-science-crack-non-adherence
- Yoeli, E., Rathauser, J., Bhanot, S. P., Kimenye, M. K., Masini, E., Owiti, P., & Rand, D. (2019). Digital Health Support in Treatment for Tuberculosis. The New England Journal of Medicine, 381(10), 986-987. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc1806550
- Leaf, C. (2020, September 21). ‘The whole world is coming together’: How the race for a COVID vaccine is revolutionizing Big Pharma. Fortune. https://fortune.com/longform/covid-vaccine-big-pharma-drugmakers-coronavirus-pharmaceutical-industry/
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
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