Abstract

We use data from an online healthcare platform to study the effects of physician education seminars on physicians’ prescription choices for a new cardiac drug. These seminars are an important form of pharmaceutical marketing that focuses on providing physicians medical knowledge, yet they are different from continuing medical education (CME) as there are neither in-person interactions nor incentives offered to participating physicians. The causal effects of the seminars are identified from the variation in the timing of seminars across geographical regions. We find that participating in a seminar will increase prescriptions of the drug by 28.8%, while reducing that of substitute drugs by 17.8%, suggesting that as a marketing tool these seminars are highly effective for the pharmaceutical firm. Qualitatively similar but weaker effects are found for another mature drug. We show evidence that the effects can be driven by both informative and persuasive functions. We further show a strong spillover effect, as participating in a seminar will increase the prescriptions of a physician’s colleagues in the same hospital. Finally, we use these results to predict the revenue and profit from conducting seminars to promote the drug.

To attend, please contact us in advance at dip.mkt@unibocconi.it.