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Physicians not ‘easy marks’ for drug sales reps, argues O.R. study

Doctors are far more wary of pharmaceutical companies’ aggressive marketing than generally believed and don’t easily yield to pressure to switch prescriptions, according to a paper being presented at a conference of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. “Are physicians easy marks?” ask Natalie Mizik of Columbia University and Robert Jacobson of the University of Washington in a paper of the same name. “To the contrary, our results show that physicians are “tough sells” in that sales force activity has modest to very small influence on prescribing behavior.”