Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2020

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: news

Byrne M.
Drug makers to operate in a new market
Australian Financial Review 2001 Mar 14

Full text:

Advertising prescription drugs directly to consumers is banned in Australia. Pharmaceutical companies have instead traditionally targeted their marketing campaigns at doctors. But all that may be about to change.

The Government has been reconsidering the laws on drug advertising over the past two years and it is expected to go public with its conclusions shortly. The indications are that the laws will change, but opinion is divided on how much they will or should change.

The Council of Australian Governments commissioned a Review of Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Legislation in July 1999. One of the areas the review examined was that of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescribed drugs. The review consulted with a range of stake holders across all jurisdictions, including industry, health professionals, government and consumers over a period of 18 months.

The review’s stated task was to “assess whether the benefits of the controls outweigh the costs that flow from the regulation”. The review delivered the final version of its report to COAG in January of this year. Although the final version of this report has not yet been released to the public, a copy of the draft report is publicly available.

On the subject of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs (DCA), the final report does not differ substantially from the draft version, according to chair of the review, Rhonda Galbally, although she says that the final version goes into more detail.

The draft report recommends that most restrictions on drug advertising remain. However, it does recommend loosening some restrictions, such as permitting price advertising, permitting advertising which is incorporated in government-run public health campaigns and making consumer medical information leaflets that provide technical information freely available at pharmacies and doctors’ surgeries.

“As far as open slather on prescription drug direct to consumer advertising, I’m not convinced of its value and can see a lot of downsides,” Galbally says.

While the Government has not made a public statement on the final version of the report, the position of the Federal Health Minister, Dr Michael Wooldridge, does not suggest that the Government will substantially change laws on direct to consumer advertising.

“The Minister is strongly opposed to direct-to-consumer advertising,” a spokeswoman for Wooldridge says. She declines to comment specifically on his views on the report before the final copy of the report is made public.

Drug advertising seems to be one issue where both sides of politics are in agreement. A spokeswoman for the shadow Health Minister, Jenny Macklin, says that Macklin is “very supportive of the recommendations of the Galbally report”.

“We believe it’s inappropriate to advertise prescription products direct to consumers,” Macklin’s spokeswoman says. “The problems in New Zealand and the US show that it’s stupid to move along the same lines.”

Both the USA and New Zealand permit direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Across the Tasman, the Government is also reconsidering its stance.

New Zealand is in the midst of a policy debate to determine whether DCA is “in the best interests of consumer”, according to a spokesman for the New Zealand Health Minister, Annette King.

Pressure from the medical profession was a major impetus for the debate. The profession had expressed concern about drug companies recently “upping the level of marketing” of their products, the spokesman says. “It’s become an issue because it seems to have accelerated over the last 18 months.”

Many Australian drug companies have also become increasingly daring. In recent times, some have sought to increase demand for their products by running “public awareness” campaigns on certain diseases and medical conditions. This includes the advertising campaign on erectile problems which urges readers to visit their doctor and features a helpline run by Impotence Australia, which is funded by Pfizer, the maker of Viagra.

A television campaign for Roche’s anti-fat drug Xenical did not mention the drug by name but urged sufferers to see their doctors.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health released a public discussion document on DCA to interested parties and the general public in November 2000. Submissions closed recently and the Ministry of Health is assessing the results. The Minister’s spokesman says that there is “no time line” for an outcome of the public discussion document. “The Government has an open mind on it at the moment.”

Galbally says she expects to see movement in New Zealand in the next six months on DCA of drugs. “I’ve recommended the New Zealand experience be tracked very carefully,” she says.

Alan Evans, the chief executive officer of the Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, disagrees with the draft report’s recommendations on DCA of prescription drugs.

Evans’s letter of response to the review says the draft report’s recommendations “would fail to provide any further information about medicines to the general public than that already legally able to be provided”.

The APMA wants an ongoing working party on the issue, including representatives from industry, prescribers, government and the community. Evans says that this is necessary to deal with rapid technological changes which he says will make current drug advertising laws obsolete.

“It will … effectively lead to and encourage consumers to access inferior information from such sources as the internet,” the APMA says in its submission to the review.

The APMA also rejects the draft’s recommendation that the price of a drug can be advertised, while information about the drug cannot.

“There is a plethora of prices. Will it be the reimbursement price, the manufacturer’s price? Will it identify the wholesaler and pharmacists’ margins and dispensing fee? It is unclear how will the question of value be communicated,” the APMA’s submission said