US direct-to-consumer advertising attacked
pharmafile | August 16, 2007 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â Â
Direct-to-consumer advertising by the US pharmaceutical industry has come under attack again, with the latest research showing that promotion of new drugs continues to grow, despite industry pledges to limit advertising on new products.
The article published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that spending on direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) has trebled over 10 years since it first began in the US.
Advertising spending now stands at just under $30 billion, but the researchers also concluded that the FDA's ability to police the practice is now weaker than ever, with just four staff dedicated to vetting adverts.
Concerns post-Vioxx
Arthritis pain drug Vioxx was one of the products most heavily promoted to consumers before it was withdrawn in 2004 after a safety scare, prompting calls by some for an outright ban on DTC. But the industry has been allowed to continue using DTC, pledging to introduce a voluntary restriction on promoting new drugs, to allow them to prove their safety before more intense promotion begins.
The NEJM study, conducted by public health specialists, has found that the industry has failed to introduce the new restrictions on advertising.
The report concluded: "Spending on direct-to-consumer advertising has continued to increase in recent years in spite of the criticisms leveled against it. Our findings suggest that calls for a moratorium on such advertising for new drugs would represent a dramatic departure from current practices."
The US campaigning charity the AIDS Healthcare Foundation says the study confirms pharma cannot regulate itself, and that greater independent monitoring and restrictions are needed.
"When it comes to direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals, AHF believes that the only ads that are truly useful to consumers without carrying potential for harm are 'help-seeking' ads – ads that educate the public about a specific medical condition for which treatment is available, without highlighting a specific drug or brand," said Dr. Homayoon Khanlou, AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Chief of Medicine, US.
"Patients are strongly influenced by advertising and often come into a doctor's office asking for a drug that may or may not be right for them. The increased advertising referred to in the New England Journal of Medicine article interferes in the relationship between doctor and patient. Particularly after the Vioxx scandal, the FDA should be doing more to protect the public from the potential overuse – and potential harm – that could result from heavily promoting new drugs," he concluded.
The new findings seem to contradict data gathered by TNS Media Intelligence in the US, which says the companies have been waiting on average 15 months to launch their DTC ads since the Vioxx debacle.
Last year, the US pharma interest group PhRMA set up what it called an informal, voluntary panel of independent health professionals, to monitor TV and print advertising, which then produced a report on DTC Advertising Trends and PhRMA's Guiding Principles.
PhRMA also created an Office of Accountability, set up to receive comments from the public and from healthcare professionals regarding DTC advertisements by pharma companies which have signed up to the guiding principles.
The new NEJM research will maintain political pressure to impose greater mandatory regulation of the field, but efforts to give the FDA greater power to regulate advertising have recently been rejected by pro-pharma congressmen.
