Pharmaceutical companies use cheesy marketing gimmicks to help train their sales people.  Rhymes and limericks are perennial favorites.

Someone sent me a few of the ones used for Ortho Evra.  Get a load of these:

The patch contains hormones you knew;
EE and NGMN are impregnated in glue.
It blocks eggs from a poppin;
Changes mucus for sperm blockin.
After one try, women will ask to renew!

Ortho-Evra – it works like a charm,
whether it’s placed on the butt or the arm.
It works largely by stoppin
those eggies from poppin,
Whether you live where it’s cold or it’s warm!

Move over pill, ring, and injectable.
Introducing a patch quite delectable.
The woman decides
On which cheek it resides.
It’s discreet and not too detectable!

If I were unethical, I’d go on about how limericks like these show that the company disregarded safety and focused only on sales, made jest of risks, etc.  But I’m sure that the science and safety guys weren’t spending their days writing limericks. 

Instead, I look at these and try to figure out who wrote them.  I figure it was either the most vapid airhead you’ve ever met in your life, or an English major whose life did not turn out the way he or she planned.

I also wonder if there was some lame training class in which all the reps had to sing these out loud.  If so, I imagine that all of the sales reps but one just gritted their teeth and went through it, but there was one rep who was really into it.  I also imagine that no one else liked that rep.

Anyway, I thought I’d share these because I know I’m not the only one who enjoys glimpses into big pharma.  If you’ve got any other limericks or gimmicks to share, shoot them my way.