Drug sales and marketing update

Last week we brought you the first installment of FDA News in Review, a monthly feature summarizing all the recent goings-on at the FDA. Now we're taking a look at another popular pharma topic--prescription drug sales and marketing news. The monthly Sales and Marketing Update will cover all the latest industry trends as well as drug advertising updates, pharma rep news and more.

In September we took a look at Big Pharma's top 13 advertising budgets of 2007, but it appears that 2008 budgets aren't looking quite as robust. According to Jim Edwards at BrandWeek, the money pharma is spending on ads is in decline this year for the first time ever. In addition, the tough economy is negatively impacting drug sales as consumers cut back on non-essential meds. In an interview, Walgreen CEO Jeffrey Rein said this is the tightest market for prescription drugs in his 27-year career. Read more