Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17286

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Publication type: news

CDER Considers Changing DDMAC To Office of Prescription Drug Promotion
Thompson Publishing Group 2010 Feb 24
http://www.thompson.com/public/newsbrief.jsp?cat=FOODDRUG&id=2649

Full text:

FDA officials proposed elevating the agency’s chief drug promotion watchdog – the Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications (DDMAC) – to office status.
The move, which still requires approval from the Office of the Commissioner, would give DDMAC greater visibility within the agency and would correspond with the division’s expansion in recent years, said DDMAC director Tom Abrams.
Under the proposal, DDMAC would be renamed the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion and have two divisions, one to review direct-to-consumer content and the second focusing on professionally directed promotions. In terms of structure, it would remain directly under the Office of Medical Policy within the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), Abrams said.
The considered change was announced Feb. 24 at a conference on pharmaceutical marketing in New York by Rachel Behrman, acting Deputy Director of the Office of Medical Policy. According to Behrman, the proposed change would take several months to implement, adding the suggested move “does not signal a change in philosophy or attitude” in DDMAC, but rather reflects the importance of the division within the agency and its overall size.
“It’s larger than it has been [in recent years], and it is no longer suited to be a division,” Behrman said. “It also has many functions that do not operate well in a single division.”
For more information, see the April edition of the FDA Advertising and Promotion Manual.