Washington, Apr 24 : A new study in a collaborative paper has revealed the tactics used by drug reps to manipulate physicians into selling drugs.

The study was conducted by physician Adriane Fugh-Berman and Shahram Ahari, a former drug rep, at University of California San Francisco.

Researchers claim that drug reps use specific strategies to manipulate a physician, depending on the personality of the doctor.

According to the researchers, a friendly, outgoing physician is the easiest to influence, because the rep can use their ‘friendship’ to request favours, in the form of prescriptions. If a physician refuses to meet with a rep, “their staff is dined and flattered in hopes that they will act as emissaries for a rep’s message.”

Physicians who end up prescribing the rep’s drugs are amply rewarded with gifts, such as golf bags or silk ties.

“Drug reps increase drug sales by influencing physicians, and they do so with finely nitrated doses of friendship,” Berman and Ahari said.

In the paper, Ahari shared his experience as a company insider when he faced a physician who preferred to use a competitor drug rather than his drug.

“The first thing I want to understand is why they’re using another drug instead of mine. If it’s a question of attention, I commit myself to lavishing them with it until they’re bought,” Ahari said.

Another technique that drug reps use is to give doctors ‘free’ drug samples, which the doctors can give to patients as a gift.

“Reps provide samples only of the most promoted, usually most expensive, drugs, and patients given a sample for part of a course of treatment almost always receive a prescription of the same drug,” the authors said.

“Every word, every courtesy, every gift, every piece of information provided is carefully crafted, not to assist doctors or patients, but to increase market share for targeted drugs,” they added.

The findings of the study were published in The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine. (ANI)