Joint disorders
Bone and joint health are common disorders that should have popped into my head earlier as a possible reason for a doctor’s visit, but they are also often overlooked by investors despite accounting for 33.6% of all doctor’s visits based on this study. Rather than looking to pre-existing treatments I would like to turn your attention to an up-and-coming experimental drug that has a strong chance to be a blockbuster from Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) known as odanacatib.
If there were any doubts about the effectiveness of odanacatib, a drug designed to reduce fracturing in bones, they flew the coop in late-stage trials when an outside monitoring committee stopped the trial early because of its overwhelming success. Although Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is taking its time with its potential blockbuster and waiting until 2014 to file for a new drug application, it has the potential to garner $3 billion or more in peak sales if approved.
Back problems
Talk about another category that can have a bevy of problems ranging from something as minor as a muscle pull to some serious like pain caused by cancer. Back problems were named in nearly one-quarter (23.9%) of all doctors’ visits and have the potential to be a big moneymaker for big pharmaceuticals and investors.
Source: Au Kirk, Flickr.
One clear way to play this is by sticking with an iconic over-the-counter medication known to relieve pain, Tylenol, which is still manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. Clearly J&J’s revenue stream is incredibly diverse, with consumer products, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals combining to equal a really large pie, but you would be surprised how often physicians suggest to patients a regimen that involves over-the-counter anti-inflammation products like Tylenol to alleviate non-serious back pain.
Cholesterol problems
High cholesterol at the No. 4 spot (named in 22.4% of all doctor’s visits by respondents) might be the first truly expected ailment that appeared on this list. As I mentioned earlier, with more than a third of this nation’s adults being obese, this group of people runs a considerably higher risk of developing obesity-related complications, which can range from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, to more immediately serious diseases like cancer. Cholesterol-lowering drugs have the potential to make a meaningful and long-lasting impact on improving the quality of life for a good chunk of Americans, which is why pharmaceutical companies are investing so heavily in new medications now.
A new medication I’ve hailed as a game-changer on numerous occasions since its approval in May is Liptruzet. This combination drug, which is made up of a statin — Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)’s now generic Lipitor — and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s cholesterol absorption inhibitor Zetia, delivered a far bigger effect on reducing LDL-cholesterol (the bad kind) than either Lipitor or Zetia could on their own in trials. Liptruzet’s LDL-reduction totaled 53% to 61% as compared with Lipitor and Zetia, which demonstrated LDL-reductions of 37% to 54% and 20%, respectively. As long-term safety concerns for these revolutionary new LDL-reducing drugs lessen, the number of prescriptions written for them by physicians is likely to improve.
Upper respiratory conditions
The fifth most common reason for visiting the doctor, upper respiratory conditions, was my blind guess as the most common reason people went to the doctor before reading the Mayo Clinic’s study. This broad topic, which encompassed 22.1% of respondents, can range from something as simple as a bacterial or viral infection that had settled in a patient’s chest to something much more severe like cancer.
Source: Steven Depolo, Flickr.
With the good likelihood that a vast majority of upper respiratory-related doctor visits have to do with some form of bacterial or viral infection, my suggestion here would be to look into flu vaccine manufacturers. Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE:SNY), for example, developed roughly 60 million doses of its Fluzone for this past year’s flu season and, by January, had sold out of many variations of the vaccine. It’s a bit difficult to tell how in-demand the flu vaccine will be from one season to the next, but I believe Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE:SNY)’s sales this past year speak for themselves.
What’s your reason?
Sometimes getting in ahead of the next big sales trends in the pharmaceutical industry involves looking at studies like this one and understanding why people go to their doctor in the first place. With a better understanding of why other people go see their doctor, perhaps being honest with yourself and asking yourself the same question might clue you into the next great health-care investment opportunity.
The article The 10 Most Common Reasons People Visit Their Doctor originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Sean Williams.
Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool owns shares of, and recommends Johnson & Johnson. It also recommends Cubist Pharmaceuticals.
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