The two largest data mining companies are IMS and Verispan in this 2 billion dollar or so a year data mining industry.

The data on individual prescribers is purchased by the pharmacies from the American Medical Association. As a result, this association receives between 40 and 50 billion dollars a year, which is nearly 20 percent of the AMA’s budget.

Over 1 billion prescriptions are monitored every year due to this process.

Advocates of the pharmaceutical industry have continuously told the public that this prescriber data is to facilitate the care the prescriber gives the patient.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In 10 years, I worked as a drug representative for 3 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

With each employer, the prescribing data that we had on the prescribers was used entirely to increase the market share of the drugs promoted with these companies by manipulating the prescribers targeted for financial gain of these pharmaceutical corporations.

Also, data mining is utilized by drug companies to target those who need to be gifted, and those who will not,

Dan Abshear