Pfizer has to pay fine over Celebrex ad in Australia
Pfizer will have to pay a A$100,000 ($85,454) fine for an ad
Australia's Reader's Digest, which promoted its COX-2
inhibitor Celebrex (celecoxib) for arthritis to the general public.
The code of conduct committee of the industry association
Medicines Australia said Pfizer's article was a "seemingly
flagrant disregard" of the code of conduct, breaching points
9.4 (promotion to the general public) and 9.5.2 (patient
education). The company has been told not to distribute the
article again directly to the general public.
Direct-to-consumer advertising of medicines is banned in
Australia, although advertising certain diseases is allowable.
Pfizer's four-page advertising feature, entitled "Choose to
Move: Living with Arthritis", included four references to
Celebrex product information and another reference to the
drug's consumer medicines information. In its defence, Pfizer
said that the ad had been drafted for a healthcare audience,
and that it was an "unfortunate oversight that in this instance
the referencing had not been adequately changed for
distribution to the general public".
The complaint was made by an unnamed academic at NSW
University, but Healthy Skepticism, the Australian-based
organisation that highlights the techniques used by
pharmaceutical companies to promote their drugs, followed
up the charge with a detailed account of the faults of the ad
on its website.
Healthy Skepticism points out that the ad's photo of two
arthritis sufferers was used extensively in Celebrex
promotional campaigns targeting doctors.
"This is a common approach used by drug companies to
sidestep the ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of
prescription medicines in Australia. The same illustration is
used in the promotion to consumers and to prescribers.
However, the name of the product advertised (in this case
Celebrex) is omitted in the consumer promotion to avoid
blatant DTCA. If doctors are shown the brochure by patients,
they cannot fail to recognise the product being promoted."
Healthy Skepticism says: "Confusing, misleading,
incomplete, deceptive, this consumer advertorial by Pfizer is
a very worrying example of de facto DCTA. Patients and the
public need reliable information they can trust. Consumer
information provided by drug companies aims to promote
sales first and is fundamentally biased. There is no role for
industry in the provision of information about diseases or
comparing treatments."
cInforma UK l.td 2007 ]
www.scripnews.com ] July 6th 2007 ] No 3274 _