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FDA Addresses Drug Ads In Online Social Media

Posted on: Friday, 13 November 2009, 07:20 CST

During a two-day public hearing hosted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pharmaceutical companies, Internet firms and nonprofit organizations came out in droves to hear and be heard as federal officials discuss a potential need for the regulation of online prescription drug advertisements.

“Consumers turn to the Web more often than the traditional channels they historically relied on,” explained Wayne Gattinella, CEO of the hugely successful health information website WebMD.

While the FDA already enforces stringent advertising rules for traditional forms of media like television, newspapers and magazines, the dynamic and ever-evolving world of the Web has proven to be a bureaucratic regulator’s nightmare on a number of levels.

Diana Zuckerman of the National Research Center for Women and Families commented before the committee that many websites often carry inaccurate, inconsistent or incomplete information about prescription drugs, leading her to call on the FDA to increase its efforts to regulate Web-mediated drug information.

“Because the risk of providing inaccurate information on medical products is so high, the FDA needs to establish ongoing relationships with [...] websites consumers are relying on,” she said.

A variety of bigwigs from various industries are scheduled to make remarks at the hearing which began on Thursday.  Representatives from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer as well as Google Inc and Yahoo are slated to make comments on Friday.

Thomas Abrams of the FDA’s marketing branch said that more than 800 people attempted to register for the public event—titled the "Promotion of Food and Drug Administration-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media"—which was to be held in a room that seats only 350.

An executive from drug maker Eli Lilly commented at the hearing that the FDA’s hitherto unclear stance towards the practice of marketing through social media networks had led the company to adopt a “better safe than sorry” attitude towards discussing its products online, giving a potential competitive advantage to less scrupulous drug firms.

Yahoo VP David Zinman spoke of the uniqueness of Web-based advertisement and suggested that the FDA draft guidelines that would allow firms to have a greater degree of flexibility.

“We need to get some adjustment to the way the medium is used because it’s very different from print and broadcast – that’s the main challenge.”

Online pharmaceutical-marketing expert John Mack of Pharma Marketing News, recommended that the FDA take the unprecedented step of mandating that drug manufacturers put “tags” on their Twitter posts in order to monitor and potentially censor discussions about specific products.

A similar suggestion was made earlier in the week by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America representative Jeffrey Francer, in which he encouraged the FDA to require a standard safety logo for drug-related Web content that would link consumers to an official FDA-approved website with information about the medication in question.

One of the key questions that speakers were asked to address was how the agency should determine what constitutes “substantive influence” by marketing companies on third-party conversations about a product?

Another challenge posed by FDA officials to drug manufacturers was to discuss how they could present balanced drug information within a 140-character long Twitter message.

Both Eli Lilly and Merck and Co Inc. received warning letters from the FDA earlier this year accusing them of using misleading online advertisements that did not contain sufficient information regarding potential risks of their medications.

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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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