In three items recently I noted that Wall Street analysts had based their guidance on surveys. Has anyone else noticed how small these influential surveys are?
Today Merrill Lynch published a glowing note on Merck's Januvia based on a poll of just 40 doctors.
A couple of weeks ago FBR published a note on Sepracor's Lunesta based on a survey of just 24 docs.
And it was also FBR in January that based a note on Nektar (Pfizer's Exubera supplier) after reading the highly scientific bulletin boards on Cafe Pharma.
I know that analyst straw polls are not the only thing that affect guidance. And I know that in market research you tend to get the gist of what your customers have to say about your product after surprisingly few interviews.
But still, 24 people? I'm just asking ...
Good point Jim. I would say, however, that the N for a survey often depends on the universe of people you are focusing on. I haven't read the Merrill survey, but they could get away with it if they were focusing on a statistically significant sample of key opinion leaders in the diabetes space.
However, there is a lot of shoddy market research going on and it's best to take numbers with a grain of salt until you can get a peak at the methodology.
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Posted by: Ron | March 05, 2008 at 06:43 PM