Dear colleagues, I recently read the article that appeared in Pharmakronos on 14 September 2010 and taken up by some sites in the sector.
I was amazed by the contents of the same and the strong inaccuracies present in it. In particular, the very title of the article is misleading and inaccurate. In fact, it says so: “It's time to become a product specialist and commercial informant”.
The beginning of the article is a whole program. Evidently the marketing thrusts of pharmaceutical companies are enormous and by now limitless if it comes to "inventing" and proposing figures not envisaged by national, European and contractual laws in the sector. These presumed marketing experts evidently do not even know the contents of law 219/06 which regulate scientific information and the advertising of medicines. These are two very distinct aspects which provide for very different rules and professional figures.
According to Mr. Errani, there are two figures in our sector, let's see them together.
“The role of the Isf is therefore diversifying into two areas of activity to which today two new professional figures refer: the product specialist and the sales rep. The product specialist – he explains – is essentially an 'evolved' informant who deals with the promotion of expensive and specific medicines for very serious or rare pathologies and who practically only addresses specialist doctors. With this figure, the pharmaceutical company essentially changes its approach to the market strategy, moving from a quantitative action, aimed at covering the whole territory and overseeing
massively medical studies with a large number of Isf, a qualitative formula, which aims to promote important and refined drugs, for highly structured market niches. The other promising figure is the commercial informant, i.e. a figure less oriented towards scientific information, more aggressive from a commercial point of view and much more requested by generic drug companies to develop the direct sales channel in pharmacies and by companies of medical devices, for the sale of their biomedical products in hospitals, clinics. This role is held by people with a younger average age and therefore promises to be one of the most interesting entry channels also for recent graduates who intend to enter the sector".
Let's clarify some points.
The product specialist and the sales representative are two non-existent figures. Article 122 of law 219/06 states as follows: “Information on medicines can be provided to the doctor and pharmacist by scientific representatives. In January of each year, each pharmaceutical company must notify AIFA, on a regional basis, of the number of healthcare professionals visited by its scientific representatives in the previous year, specifying the average number of visits made. To this end, within the month of January of each year, each pharmaceutical company must communicate to AIFA the list of scientific representatives employed during the previous year, with an indication of the qualification and type of employment contract with the pharmaceutical company.” Neither product specialists nor commercial informants are appointed. In all cases, scientific reps must receive adequate training from the companies they depend on, so as to be in possession of sufficient scientific knowledge to provide accurate and as complete information on the medicines presented. The companies holders of MA axes
