In an effort to be more physician and patient friendly PhRMA today released a set of Guiding Principles for direct to consumer advertising.
In summary they are:
· Actors portraying health-care professionals should be identified as actors. If healthcare professionals are used then the ad should acknowledge their compensation.
(Avoids a Jarvic-Lipitor style situation)
· Ads using a celebrity endorser should accurately reflect the celebrities’ opinions, findings, beliefs or experience of the endorser. Paperwork for the endorser to sign that they are sincere.
(Averts dumb celebrities saying I didn’t know)
· Ads to include the FDA’s MedWatch Number or referral to a print/website with MedWatch Number.
(TV ad that says – look for more safety information on ___ in your doctor’s office)
· Companies should consider setting a time frame for educating health professionals prior to launching DTC advertising.
(This is to avoid the deluge of patients going to a physician’s office asking for the newest ED treatment of which the doctor knows nothing about. This should also delay other treatments advertising without a fully informed medical community.)
· Ads “containing content that may be inappropriate for children” should be placed in programs or publications “reasonably expected to draw an audience of approximately 90 percent adults (18 years or older).”
(Hopefully no more ED ads on daytime television, great move.)
· Ads should include strengthened risk benefit balance or send them to a website with more detailed information on risk-benefit.
(Balance is important and ads under these guidelines should do a better job in outlining the tradeoffs.)
· PhRMA’s Office of Accountability will collect comments about DTC advertisements and issue periodic reports to the public and FDA.
· Company CEOs and Compliance Officers will certify each year that they have processes in place to comply with the Principles.
· PhRMA will post on its web site a list of all companies that announce their pledge to follow the Principles and information about the status of companies’ annual certifications.
Many of these changes address most of the recent criticism of DTC. Especially the appropriate audience change.
These guiding principles represent a reasoned response to the public concerns over DTC and hopefully facilitate a better informed patient population.
It will be interesting to see the response from Capitol Hill, which should greet these principles with a welcome reception.
PhRMA Press Release: America’s Pharmaceutical Companies Enhance Voulentary Guidelines on Direct to consumer advertising
PhRMA: PhRMA Guiding Principles Direct to Consumer Advertisements About Prescription Medicines