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Executive Summary
Pharmaceutical company specialty representatives with HIV drug products were asked 16 questions about how new HIV management techniques, like HIV-1 drug resistance tests (RT), are incorporated into the sales process. Despite the fact that using resistance tests has been recommended by various panels1-4 in situations of First Failure on HIV drugs, only 17% of responders answered that RT should be recommended for this indication. In contrast to studies5,6 demonstrating that RT probably would provide more benefits in clinical outcomes and in preserving future therapeutic options, the majority of responders (69%) said that RT was being used to manage Salvage Therapy only. Almost half (49%) of responders said that RT does not influence the selection of HIV therapy when multiple studies7,8 have shown that RT is a very important tool in selecting HIV therapy after failure. HIV-1 drug resistance test training for HIV specialty representatives would provide useful information when presenting their products to physicians during the sales call.
Background
S. R. Ware Associates, Inc. (SRWA) developed an Internet questionnaire8 that enabled selected HIV specialty representatives to anonymously respond to questions. The objective of the small market research pilot study, focused mainly on HIV specialty representatives with pharmaceutical companies, was to determine how pharmaceutical companies incorporated new HIV management tools into the selling process. The 16 survey questions probed the representative's general level of HIV knowledge and their perception of how HIV-1 drug resistance tests (RT) and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) were used by physicians. A similar study, which asked physicians similar questions9, was conducted; however, the complete results for both studies will be published in a different forum.
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