Feeling gloomy about the economy? Here's a bit of silver lining for you: As stock markets tank and jobs disappear, prescriptions for sleeping pills and antidepressant drugs are leaping ahead. That's right. Sleepless nights of financial worrying have patients turning to anti-insomnia drugs. And with daily stress on the rise, depressives are getting depressed. So they're looking for pharmacological help, too.
According to IMS Health (via Advertising Age) scrips for major sleeping-pill brands grew by 7 percent last year, as some 31 percent of Americans were telling "Sleep in America" pollsters that they're losing sleep over the economy. Meanwhile, antidepressant scrips leapt by 15 percent. "The pattern certainly suggests" the economy is a factor, Amy Wolfson, a professor and one of five members of the sleep-poll task force, told AdAge. "There are worries about the economy and that can certainly lead to insomnia ... so, yeah, it certainly makes sense that the [prescription] numbers would be up."
- read the post at Pharma Marketing Blog
- check out the AdAge article