Direct drug ads stay legal

By DITA DE BONI marketing writer

Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisers are sighing with relief after learning they can continue plying their trade.

Health Minister Annette King said this week that although direct advertising of medicines - such as prescription medicines for obesity, asthma, impotence and heart problems - would become stricter, the "principle of self-regulation" would continue.

"After considering submissions made during the review, including those from consumer groups and organisations like the New Zealand Medical Association, and after receiving advice from the Ministry of Health, I have decided such advertising should continue to be allowed, but with tighter regulation," she said.

"The debate around direct-to-consumer [DTC] advertising has been extremely vigorous.

"Making evidence-based policy is not easy, as there is little empirical evidence to support either side of the debate, and the views on both sides are ... diametrically opposed."

The minister said there was some evidence to show that the existence of DTC advertising did increase doctor visits and prescriptions.

But she also noted that the establishment of the TAPS self-regulatory system, where therapeutics and medicines are pre-vetted by an adjudicator, was a step in the right direction.

But further restrictions are still being considered.

Among the proposals: limiting DTC advertisements to broadcast and print media (some medicines are being direct marketed along with competitions, free offers and paid doctors' visits); banning drug brandnames on vehicles; banning pharmaceutical drug event-sponsorship; and ensuring that risk information is shown at a certain size (in print) or for a certain time (on television).

Another suggestion is to require all ads on television to have a voice-over with risk information, as specified in the United States, the only other national market to allow DTC advertising.

The ministry said it received 43 submissions almost evenly split for and against direct advertising.

Pharmaceutical advertising is an $18 million industry in New Zealand and has been increasing since it was introduced into the mass media five years ago.

Specifically, ads such as those for weight-loss therapy Xenical have caused a storm of controversy with their depictions of obesity. Others, like those for common bronchial conditions such as asthma, have greatly increased the use of the advertised drugs in poorer communities, which proponents hail as a positive development but opponents say is socially irresponsible.

Wayne McNee, chief executive of the Government's medicines management agency Pharmac, did not want to comment at length on the minister's decision, but referred to a statement by the agency which said it was pleased there would be tighter controls over DTC advertising.

"We will take an active part in the planned consultation on options for changes to the current law."

Advocates of self-regulatory systems, perhaps predictably, were more enthusiastic in praising this week's decision.

"[We] are particularly pleased that the ministry's advice was that a ban on advertising could not be justified for health reasons, or for potential fiscal pressure on the Government," said the Research Medicines Industry chairman, Richard Nottage.

"Any concern that the Government's health budget may come under pressure from doctors wishing to prescribe registered medicines to patients should not become an argument for removing the rights of companies to advertise the availability of medicines to patients.

"Patients should have the right to know if a treatment is available and the right to decide, in consultation with their doctor, whether to pay for medicine that is registered but not publicly funded."

Robert Munro, director of Torre Lazur McCann Healthcare - New Zealand's largest medicines advertising agency - said "common sense had prevailed" in the minister's decision.

"It would have been very hard to have a blanket ban on this type of advertising, given the prevalence of it on the internet, for example," he says.

"Overall, its a good vote for the self-regulatory system as opposed to Government-funded central control, and we are very pleased."