Article ID: CBB001320753

“The Strophanthin Question”: Early Scientific Marketing of Cardiac Drugs in Two National Markets (France and Germany, 1900--1930). (2013)

unapi

Bonah, Christian (Author)


History and Technology
Volume: 29, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 135-152


Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on the 20th century marketing and advertising of pharmaceuticals.
Language: English

Historical analyses of marketing strategies in pharmaceutical companies have focused disproportionately on `big-pharma' corporations. This paper explores scientific marketing at the `ordinary' level of a minor pharmaceutical -- called Strophanthin in Germany and Ouabaine in France -- used for treating cardiac problems. The narrative offers a comparative German-French perspective but will emphasize the early twentieth century activities of a German, middle-sized, family-run pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Mannheim. The case highlights the existence of a pre-1940 nexus of corporate-professional relations that contrasts with the analytic narratives of the extant literature, which primarily gives attention to that small number of corporations whose operations have spanned the earlier and later decades of the twentieth century and to their approaches to industrial R&D and marketing. Here the focus is on the marketing practices of a middle-sized firm, which deployed a strategy of marketing different than their larger competitors, including their approach to national and international market sales. In this context, a `physician-push model' of marketing was pre-eminent, in which individual physicians, such as Albert Fraenkel in the Strophanthin case, played a central role not only in researching and developing a drug but also in its promotion. Looking at `scientific marketing' as a form of promotion that was part of a transnational peer-to-peer network, the paper concludes that significant differences existed between France and Germany in their style of advertising in professional journals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Article Gaudillière, Jean-Paul; Thoms, Ulrike (2013) Pharmaceutical Firms and the Construction of Drug Markets: From Branding to Scientific Marketing. History and Technology (pp. 105-115). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320753/

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Authors & Contributors
Gaudillière, Jean-Paul
Thomas, Ulrike
Quirke, Viviane
Greene, Jeremy Alan
Amelang, Katrin
Black, Sara E.
Concepts
Pharmaceutical industry
Chemical drugs
Marketing techniques
Advertising
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
Pharmacy
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
21st century
18th century
Places
Germany
United States
France
Great Britain
England
Denmark
Institutions
Imperial Chemical Industries
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)
World Health Organization (WHO)
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