How can it be more beneficial to use drugs then harmful?

How can I locate pharmaceutical sales or use data for individual drugs?

• I am hoping to locate present and historical sales or usage figures for various prescription drugs, and I am not sure where to start. I'm trying to use the data to get a sense of how many people were using a particular drug at different times; I just figured sales volume would be a good indication. For me, rough numbers would be fine.Paying for the data may be an option (especially if it is not too expensive), but I was hoping to find some good free resources. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Market share data for different drugs in a particular class would be similarly useful, especially to the extent that I can also find overall sales or use volume for the overall drug class.

• Answer:

  There is a ton of stuff available on http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/ims/menuitem.5ad1c081663fdf9b41d84b903208c22a/?vgnextoid=fbc65890d33ee210VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD - mostly around classes of drugs rather than individual therapies, but may be helpful. http://www.imshealth.com/deployedfiles/ims/Global/Content/Corporate/Press%20Room/Top-Line%20Market%20Data%20&%20Trends/2011%20Top-line%20Market%20Data/Top_Products_by_Sales.pdf (pdf) goes to individual product level, as does this http://www.drugs.com/stats/top100/2012/sales list. The sources are legitimate. If you need more than that, companies like SDI, McKesson's or regions with Drug Information Systems (many are not mature yet - I worked on the first one in Canada and it's just now able to provide this info) can do this on a more micro level. Expect to pay for that kind of thing.