Article at a glance:

Pharma goes direct in Japan

Japan's pharmaceutical market is stagnant, and companies there are under pressure to find more innovative marketing methods. Unlike pharma companies in the United States, those in Japan can't identify their products in advertising directed at consumers. Japanese companies have been wary of investing in campaigns to increase general awareness of treatable conditions, believing that such efforts could wind up benefiting their competitors. But the results of pilot studies suggest that the investment can pay off handsomely.

The take-away

General-awareness campaigns about treatable medical conditions—if coordinated with targeted sales efforts aimed at health insurers, doctors, and corporate health programs—can indeed raise sales of pharmaceuticals. Even doctors who were initially skeptical of such campaigns later agreed that they helped draw in significant numbers of patients for treatment.