Anti-osteoporosis bone drugs such as Fosamax, Boniva, and Prolia have become a billion-dollar market for drugmakers thanks to aggressive marketing.
To sell its “bisphosphonate” bone drug Fosamax, Merck began marketing the dangers of osteoporosis in hopes of reaching a market”far beyond ailing old ladies” according to Fortune magazine. It hired an operative to create the “Bone Measurement Institute” to establish the “risk of osteoporosis,” as a health epidemic and plant bone scan machines in medical offices across the country—a gambit that made Merck $280 million from Fosamax’s first-year sales. Merck’s “Bone Measurement Institute” then lobbied, with Merck-funded groups, to get Medicare to cover bone scans through the Bone Mass Measurement Act.
