BACKGROUND Pharmaceutical representative visits are believed to have substantial impact, but the effects on prescribing patterns have not been systematically evaluated. OBJECTIVE This study investigates how pharmaceutical sales representative visits influenced physicians' company-specific drug preferences and prevalence of steroid prescribing. METHODS Observational cohort study in Funen Cou...

BACKGROUND More than 50,000 new HIV infections occur annually in the United States. Injection drug users represent twelve percent of incident HIV infections each year. Pharmacy sales of over-the-counter (OTC) syringes have helped prevent HIV transmission among injection drug users in many states throughout the United States. However, concerns exist among some law enforcement officials, policyma...

PURPOSE Since 1990, numerous jurisdictions in the United States (US) have reported increases in drug poisoning mortality. During the same time period, the use of opioid analgesics has increased markedly as part of more aggressive pain management. This study documented a dramatic increase in poisoning mortality rates and compared it to sales of opioid analgesics nationwide. METHODS Trend analy...

OBJECTIVE To provide evidence on recent trends in: (1) market exclusivity periods (MEPs, the time between launch of a brand-name drug and its first generic competitor) for new molecular entities (NMEs); (2) the likelihood and timing of patent challenges under Paragraph IV of the Hatch-Waxman Act; and (3) generic drug penetration. METHODS IMS Health National Sales Perspectives data were used t...

Natural genetic variation in the human genome is a cause of individual differences in responses to medications and is an underappreciated burden on public health. Although 108 G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the targets of 475 (∼34%) Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs and account for a global sales volume of over 180 billion US dollars annually, the prevalence of genetic ...

INTRODUCTION E-cigarette sales continue to increase in the United States. To date, little surveillance research has documented the specific product attributes driving growth. This study uses national market scanner data to describe sales trends in traditional U.S. tobacco retail channels between 2012 and 2013 and identifies product features associated with sales increases. METHODS Data on e-c...

Although syndromic surveillance systems using nonclinical data have been implemented in the United States, the approach has yet to be tested in France. We present the results of the first model based on drug sales that detects the onset of influenza season and forecasts its trend. Using weekly lagged sales of a selected set of medications, we forecast influenzalike illness (ILI) incidence at th...

OBJECTIVE To ascertain if monitoring over-the-counter (OTC) drug sales could provide a timely syndromic surveillance method of detecting outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness. METHOD This study evaluated the potential of a syndromic surveillance system by comparing retrospective pharmacy OTC sales of anti-nauseants and anti-diarrheals to emergency room visits and case numbers from two Canadia...