WASHINGTON, D.C. – Pharmaceutical companies want to market drugs online, and today, they will push the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for guidelines on how to do so, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In an article that appeared online Wednesday, the Journal reported that drug companies have only dabbled in Internet advertising because of “fears of running afoul of regulators.” The FDA has not established specific rules for online advertising, the Journal said.
So, the companies rely on television and magazine ads. Last year, they spent $4.4 billion on prescription drug ads; of that, just $130 million was used for Web advertising, according to TNS Media Intelligence, the Journal reported.
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That’s in spite of the fact that comScore estimates an average of 91 million Americans go online for health information each month, the Journal said. The newspaper noted that Google, Yahoo and WebMD Health will attend today’s FDA hearing.
“Clearly when you look at the number of people on Twitter and Facebook, there is no doubt how people want to communicate,” said Ray Kerins, Pfizer’s vice president of worldwide communications, according to the Journal. “This is a new medium, and we need guidelines so that we can educate patients and physicians in a safe and appropriate way.”
More stories worth a read:
- Cleveland company developing Google-like service to quickly analyze electronic medical records (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
- Budget consultant suggests Cleveland seek payments from nonprofits (Crain’s Cleveland Business)
- Cleveland Clinic chief defends obesity remarks (Associated Press)
- Case Western Reserve is participating site in newly-launched national volunteer recruitment registry launch of researchmatch.org (Case Western Reserve University)
- White House endorses paid sick leave bill (New York Times)
- Policy brief examines ‘public option’ debate (Health Affairs)
- PolyMedix announces up to $21 million public equity offering (Business Wire)
- Former Pfizer R&D exec jumps into VC game (FierceBiotech)
- Metabolix makes $27M public offering (Mass High Tech)
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