Big Ad Dollars Spent On Abilify

Decision Resources, a market analyst firm, is out with a report on the market for atypical antipsychotics, which the company estimates at $15.9 billion in 2007 with growth projected to $17.8 billion in 2011. That's a lot of doped up people, and you know that's not going to be in schizophrenia. Where do you think the growth market is for these drugs? Depression perhaps? Kids? The company doesn't say in the report's snippet it's made public.

What it does say is that the Bristol Myers-Squibb/Otsuka partnership spends about twice as much on advertising Abilify as dod makers of other atypicals. It doesn't say how much money the company spends however, although since it's been a heavy advertiser on national TV, you know it's a lot. What's interesting is that DR claims that such ads sure haven't positioned Abilify as the go-to drug in the mind of doctors. Meanwhile, Lilly and AstraZeneca send doctors the most promotional literature for atypicals. One assumes AZ will increase its literature carpet bombing of docs if Seroquel gets approved for depression.

I miss the bad old days when antipsychotics didn't need to be advertised to either physicians or the general public because no doc in his or her right mind would use an antipsychotic on anyone but people with psychotic disorders. Not depression, not anxiety, not alleged child bipolar disorder, not mild forms of bipolar disorder. How times change.