Side Effects movie targets Big Pharma's sales tactics on the big screen

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" Side Effects " movie targets Big Pharma's sales tactics on the big screen

 

 

Big Pharma has enjoyed years of positive publicity in the mainstream

media through large financial expenditures toward lobbying and

advertising; indeed, the industry spends more money on self-promotion

than it does on product research.

 

Now, however, a new kind of exposure is looming on the horizon of Big

Pharma's future with the upcoming release of " Side Effects, " an

independent movie about a pharmaceutical sales rep with a conscience,

written and directed by former real-life pharmaceutical sales rep

Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau.

 

The Mo Productions movie stars Katherine Heigl (of the hit TV show

" Grey's Anatomy " ) as Karly Hert, a pharmaceutical sales rep who kind

of stumbles into the business. Although she is morally conflicted by

what she knows about the negative side effects of the drugs she

peddles, Karly immerses herself in her career, drawn in by fringe

benefits like a big paycheck and company cars, which the film's

official website ( www.sideeffectsthemovie.com ) refers to as the

" golden handcuffs " of corporate America.

 

Karly's world is turned upside down when she breaks the company

manual's rule number three: Never date co-workers. Zach Danner (played

by newcomer Lucien McAfee) convinces Karly to listen to her conscience

and leave her morally corrupt career behind. However, Karly finds that

leaving the business is not as simple as it sounds.

 

With drug commercials -- often with budgets rivaling TV shows and

movies -- littering the airwaves and only vaguely promoting a drug and

making obscure references to what the drug is supposed to treat, it

will be interesting to see how the movie-going public reacts when

" Side Effects " hits theaters on Nov. 4. The satirical look at Big

Pharma already took the San Jose Cinequest Film Festival by storm as

avid festival-goers were turned away from both scheduled showings of

the movie.

 

Mo Productions is offering $1,000 for amateur spoofs of drug

commercials that show happy people driving shiny sports cars through

the countryside while wearing designer clothing, joyfully enduring

some hinted-at disease thanks to some barely acknowledged pill

(although the name of the product is frequently acknowledged). The

spoof has to be for the movie's fictional product, Vivexx, although

the contest rules state that the pill can be said to treat anything at

all or, more appropriately, nothing at all, and some of the entries

will even find their way onto the special features section of the

movie's DVD release.

 

Moschkau based the movie's storyline on her own 10-year experience as

a pharmaceutical sales rep. Like Karly, Moschkau was seduced by the

money and the fringe benefits, but as she came to realize that

consumer wellness would always be superseded by company profits, she

decided she would rather be unemployed than contribute any more to the

industry. Luckily, Moschkau kept some notes of her experience, which

she used to develop the story of " Side Effects. " Because she feared

that a major production company would chew the story up, Moschkau

decided to make the film herself. That way, pharmaceutical companies

couldn't find a way to bury the message of her film with their massive

advertising budget, which is about $3 billion a year.

 

Other than television advertising, there are few types of exposure

that can match a motion picture. It would undoubtedly be in Big

Pharma's interests for this movie to never come out, but since

Moschkau's decision to make it herself cut off the industry's chance

to influence the film, the general public will finally see a different

side of the drug issue coming to them through a mainstream channel.

The challenge now is for the movie to be enjoyable enough for people

to recommend it to their friends, and thereby expose them to the

lesser-known side of the companies that claim to have the consumer's

best health interests at heart.