Pharmaceutical companies no longer court doctors with tickets to sporting events and lavish trips, but one of the nation's largest drug manufacturers deployed a squad of sports figures to get physicians to play ball.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp, a part of Swiss-based Novartis AG with $44.3 billion in revenue in 2009, relied on a lineup of baseball Hall of Fame members, including Bob Gibson and Johnny Bench, professional football players such as New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, coaches and other top athletes as lures to get doctors to attend dinners where the company would pitch its products.
The athletes were expected to give short speeches at the dinners, answer questions about their careers and then pose for individual photos with the 50 to 100 doctors in attendance. Novartis marketing representatives later would bring the photos when they went to call on the doctors to sell their products.
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