The lawyers and settlements blog has a great article that gives a good little synopsis of the arguments against direct-to-consumer advertising in the US, or as we call it in Europe, information to patients. It strikes me as an odd source for a feature on this blog, but I won’t let that get in the way of my enjoying a well written, rational article.While I highly recommend you go there and read it, here are a few of the main points made in the article:
- Industry spending on marketing went up from $11 billion in 1996 to $30 billion in 2005
- Between 1999 and 2000, sales of advertised drugs increased by 24% (!!!), compared with just 4.3% for non-advertised drugs.
- Most interestingly, several states are proposing legislation that will curb direct to consumer advertising, or, at least, force pharmaceutical companies to be more open about their marketing practices. Good progress, I say.
It’s really easy to downplay the effects that marketing practices have. After all, how could a simple advert have such a profound effect on consumer practice? But the evidence speaks for itself, and companies wouldn’t be spending so much money on marketing if it didn’t work.The upside of that is, if marketing is the reason that some drugs do well, where does that leave evidence-based medicine?
John Dalli, a former Maltese economy and social affairs minister, will have more influence over public health policy than any of his predecessors when he takes up his post as the European Union’s health commissioner next month.
Mr Dalli has set out his priorities. He will press ahead with two relatively non-controversial pharmaceutical proposals already on the table: stepping up measures against counterfeit drugs and improving pharmacovigilance.
But he expressed strong concerns about controversial plans to allow drug companies to communicate directly with the public by allowing companies, under certain conditions, to publish information on their products in newspapers and magazines.
“We will reassess the package on information and bring more patient perspective to the proposal,” he said, adding that the reassessment would include stronger demarcation between information and advertising. “You do not want a situation where people in a vulnerable position can be coerced to purchase a product that may not be good for them,” he said
For full article, go to http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/jan20_2/c353
The European Commission is stepping up pressure on drug companies it suspects of using illegal sweetener deals to protect their patents and prevent cheaper generic drugs from entering the market.
Just three weeks before she is due to stand down as European Union Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes has asked several European companies to supply her staff with copies of their patent settlement agreements.
The commission did not divulge the identities of the companies it had targeted. But several confirmed they had been contacted and asked to provide documentation, including annexes, of all agreements with generic drug producers concluded between 1 July 2008 and 31 December 2009. These included AstraZeneca plc, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, and Roche.
For full article, go to http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/jan15_2/c268