Pharmaceutical Marketing - To Users

To Users

Only two countries as of 2008 allow direct to users advertising (DTCA): the United States and New Zealand. Since the late 1970s, DTCA of prescription drugs has become important in the United States. It takes two main form: the promotion or creation of a disease out of a non-pathologic physical condition or the promotion of a medication. Many people will inquire about, or even demand a medication they have seen advertised on television. In the United States, recent years have seen an increase in mass media advertisements for pharmaceuticals. Expenditures on direct-to-users advertising have more than quintupled in the seven years between 1997 and 2005 since the FDA changed the guidelines, from $1.1 billion in 1997 to more than $4.2 billion in 2005, a 19.6% annual increase, according to the United States GAO (Government Accountability Office, 2006).

The mass marketing to users of pharmaceuticals is banned in over 30 industrialized nations, but not in the US and New Zealand, which is considering a ban. Some feel it is better to leave the decision wholly in the hands of medical professionals; others feel that users education and participation in health is useful, but users need independent, comparative information about drugs (not promotional information). For these reasons, most countries impose limits on pharmaceutical mass marketing that are not placed on the marketing of other products. In some areas it is required that ads for drugs include a list of possible side effects, so that users are informed of both facets of a medicine. Canada's limitations on pharmaceutical advertising ensure that commercials that mention the name of a product cannot in any way describe what it does. Commercials that mention a medical problem cannot also mention the name of the product for sale; at most, they can direct the viewer to a website or telephone number operated by the pharmaceutical company.