Do you have shortness of breath or a dry, hacking cough? The drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim hopes so--that's why it has launched a new "awareness" campaign to sell the disease of interstitial lung disease to people who might think they are fine. (See: "Have Drug; Need Patients!") Like other successful disease sales campaigns--think "EPI"-- Boehringer Ingelheim has dubbed interstitial lung disease "ILD" because it knows that initialism sells. It also knows that once a frightened patient gets to the doc, it is likely Boehringer Ingelheim's ILD drug Ofev will be prescribed. Ka-ching.
Who is Boehringer Ingelheim? A German-based drugmaker giant whose anticoagulant Pradaxa injured approximately 3,900 according to a 2014, $650 million settlement.
Boehringer Ingelheim is hardly alone in floating rare diseases to sell drugs. Pfizer is marketing the disease of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy--a condition few can say and even fewer have ever heard of--shortened to ATTR-CM. If you have fatigue, stomach issues or joint pain you might have ATTR-CM-- and Pfizer could make some $ales. Don't wait: see your doctor now.
Drugmaker Apellis has launched a campaign to sell the disease of geographic atrophy--an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, dubbed "GA." Do straight lines appear wavy to you? Do you require extra light to read? You might have GA and Apellis could make some $ales. Don't wait: see your doctor now.
Drugmakers have apparently exhausted the markets for the familiar diseases they put on the US map like depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD (more than a quarter of the population now takes such psych drugs according to estimates) and are clutching at medical straws.
Expensive Dangerous Drugs For Conditions That Barely Exist
Selling rare diseases--hypochondria!--to the general public makes money for almost everyone. Drugmakers no longer need reps, news outlets have bountiful, reliable advertisers and health care practitioners and their institutions have a steady stream of patients to whom they can give the latest drugs that are being aggressively advertised (and are shockingly expensive).
The only downsides to disease mongering are healthy people who may end up over-diagnosed and over-medicated, the dramatic rise in healthcare costs and taxes from the branded new drugs and the entrenched drugmaker oblivion to creating drugs the world actually needs. For example why won't drugmakers research safer antibiotics for resistant bacteria unless they are given handouts from taxpayer money? Hey, there's no money in meds people only take for a few days! Everyone knows that. Drugmakers want lifelong customers.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
