Interesting Phenomenon

So, I was looking through some news from back home and my eye was caught by this news from the economy section of the webpage. I thought it's an interesting phenomenon and will perfectly fit in here to write about it. The economy in Estonia goes through hard times right now like the rest of the world. Even though the whole country is struggling in the economy crisis there is an unexplained phenomenon: increased use of an expensive prescription medicine that is used to treat high cholesterol called Crestor. According to the statistics Agency its sales rose 30% within a year. The increase of usage is even more outstanding considering the fact that the overall use of medicines has decreased during the crisis and this trend applies to most drug groups. The explanation may be behind the company's Astrazeneca effective outreach work. Crestor is company's one of the main products. Last year AstraZeneca spent 1.6 million Euros on advertising their product. They also did a great job in promoting their products abroad by sending doctors in different countries to introduce the medicine.

What I can see is that people really value their health even in difficult times. They do not want to spare on their health. Many of us assume automatically that higher price means better quality and companies know that and benefit from it. But is it really true? Is there a positive correlation between the price and quality? I am not really sure about it. As trying to be a reasonable consumer I think before I buying something. I rather spend some more time on finding information and doing some resaerch and comparison than overpay. For example buying a flu medicine at CVS: there is this $20 brand and one shelf below I see $10 CVS brand medicine that serves the same purose. I automatically want to grab $20 drug, but now I have become more aware. I compare those both brands to see the difference. Usually there is no signifficant difference between them. So, I do not see the point in paying more just because the product has a well known brand, more expensive looking package etc.