Potentially "tragic" forecast

Profile specialty versus general practice reps Percentage of time reps can adequately detail or sell to physicians

What is the long-term forecast for such a crowded selling field? At best, it begs comparison to Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons." This concept was popularized in 1968 when Hardin used it to illustrate the effect of human population growth and unregulated use of natural resources. It is the "tragic" social phenomenon of people acting to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole.

Most significant reason for lack of time reps have available to detail MDs

Among the best-known real-world examples for this dynamic is the destruction of pasture lands due to overgrazing by too many cattle. The premise is that if a pasture is shared by local herders and every herder is interested in maximizing his yield, each will increase his herd size whenever possible. But there's both a positive and negative consequence for each addition. On the one hand, the guy who expands his herd receives a higher payout. But the field becomes increasingly degraded with each addition, and — ultimately — even the ambitious herder will reap diminishing returns as time goes by.

The costs and benefits of such decisions are unequally shared: The individual herder gains all of the advantages of additional animals, but all who use the pasture are burdened with the disadvantages. So when an individual herder weighs his options, the rational course of action is to add to the herd — as often as possible. And since this is the optimal course for all the herders, overgrazing and degradation of the pasture is the near-sure outcome.

This metaphor describes how overuse of a limited resource ultimately dooms the resource for everyone.

Sizing a sales force: The dilemma

Prediction of company's (for reps) and district's (for managers) overall sales force size (in terms of number of reps) by 2009

No one's trying to ruin the field or doom the resource; decision-makers are simply making sound business decisions — in the context of competitor actions. It's the age-old conflict between individual interests and the common good. A game theory known as Prisoner's Dilemma helps explain the decision-making process of this social reality.

Using the pharma sales model as an analogy, the "too many sales reps" problem could theoretically be addressed if every pharma and biotech company reduced its sales force. However, if one company chose not to play along, then it would likely win greater access to physicians because the selling field would suddenly be less crowded with competitors.

This means that the smartest business decision is to defect, to not go along with the reduction. It's the only viable way to get ahead. So the concept of the "defector" — a term used to describe one who pursues individual gain in the Prisoner's Dilemma game theory — is very relevant to the pharma sales-model issue.