Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10842

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Kmietowicz Z.
Doctors reject call for a ban on advertisements of reformulated drugs
BMJ 2007 Jul 7; 335:(7609):14
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/335/7609/14

Abstract:

BMA representatives at their annual meeting in Torquay rejected a request for the BMJ to boycott advertisements for drugs which are remarketed and reformulated by pharmaceutical companies because they are due to lose their patent.

Stuart Blake, from Lothian, who proposed the motion, said he had no objections to the marketing strategy by some companies to replace drugs that are about to lose their patents with new formulations or enantiomers, but he did object to the fact that the old version of the drug was often withdrawn. He called this a “reprehensible activity.”

“It [remarketing old drugs] is not in the best interests of doctors, patients, or the NHS,” he said. The only purpose of the activity was to maintain the profits of the pharmaceutical companies involved.

Supporting the motion, Gerard Millen, a student BMA representative, complained that the cost of reformulated drugs was often four to 10 times that . . .