Healthy Skepticism Library item: 914
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
Associated Press.
Update 1: Drug Companies Launch Ad Campaign
Forbes.com 2005 Mar 24
Full text:
The 10 drug companies behind a recently established discount card for the uninsured are launching an advertising campaign to promote it. The ads for the Together Rx Access Card will appear on 12 cable networks, radio stations in 34 markets and newspapers in several cities next month. Roba Whiteley, executive director of Together Rx Access, declined to give the campaign’s budget, saying the companies were “spending a robust amount.”
The card was announced in January and gives uninsured people who meet certain requirements discounts of 25 percent to 40 percent on drugs. Whiteley declined to say how many people have signed up for the card so far.
To be eligible for the card, individuals must be legal residents who don’t have drug coverage and aren’t eligible for Medicare. An individual can’t earn more than $30,000, with the income ceiling raising $10,000 for each additional household member. For example, a family of four can’t earn more than $60,000.
Whiteley said that 80 percent of the country’s 45 million people are eligible for the card.
Seven of the 10 companies launched a discount card for senior citizens in 2002. But Whiteley said that card wasn’t widely advertised because senior citizens can be reached through other efforts such as promotions in community centers and housing developments catering to older people.
The campaign comes as the pharmaceutical industry’s image has been eroded by various debacles including allegations drug companies hid negative results of their drugs and Merck & Co.‘s decision to withdrawal its pain reliever Vioxx amid evidence it boosts risk of heart attack and strokes. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 70 percent of Americans believe the industry puts profits ahead of people
Whiteley said the campaign wasn’t designed as an image booster.
Whiteley said special efforts would be made to reach communities with large numbers of blacks and Hispanics because she said they make up a larger portion of the uninsured.
The companies are Abbott Laboratories Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.; GlaxoSmithKline PLC; Janssen Pharmaceutica Products and Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, which are part of Johnson & Johnson; Novartis SA; Pfizer Inc., Sanofi-Aventis SA, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America Inc. and TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc.
