This paper explores efficiency in the health sector and considers the impact of
a shift from private to public insurance payment for prescription drugs on the
marketing of pharmaceuticals in the USA. Pharmaceutical product marketing strategy
has historically relied heavily on product differentiation and efforts to win over
physicians and patients to new and better drugs.
A relatively undiscriminating foundation of private and public healthcare finance that paid for most prescriptions facilitated this. But unsustainable increases in inefficient health spending are altering the marketing of pharmaceuticals (Follette and Sheiner, 2005). Greater use of value-based purchasing relying on cost-effectiveness, cost-utility and other analyses can be expected. The purpose of this paper is to consider the efficiency of US healthcare in an international context. The paper emphasizes the concept of efficiency and explores
implications for pharmaceutical marketing.