Demonstrating just how badly mainline agencies are suffering from the recession, Omnicom Group reported that Q4 net income was down 13.7% to $271 million from $313.9 million for the period a year ago.

Bausch & Lomb launched a targeted ad campaign aimed at seniors for its new Crystalens intraocular lens for cataracts.

Steven Nissen, head of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic, wrote in the journal Nature that DDMAC "needs the right to restrict direct-to-consumer advertising during the first two years a drug is marketed and to preview advertising to ensure it is not misleading."

To leverage social media effectively, the drug industry will have to transform its commercial model, said panelists at the ePharma Summit.

Pfizer moved the consumer advertising business for Chantix to McGarryBowen, ending McCann HumanCare's contract on the smoking cessation drug.

The FDA is weighing requiring DTC TV ads to carry a toll-free number for adverse events reports and is surveying 1,600 consumers to find out what they think, the Associated Press reported.

Consumer advertising "was the single worst decision for the industry," according to Roche Pharmaceuticals CEO William Burns at a conference in London early last month.

Spending on DTC launch campaigns dropped this year as companies waited longer to market fewer new drugs with more limited indications, said a TNS Media Intelligence report.

Attorneys at the Washington law firm of McDermott Will & Emery advised in October that companies wishing to avoid FDA challenges to drug ads and promotional pieces should review their materials in all therapeutic categories to determine whether they make implied outcomes claims.

The FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications (DDMAC) issued an untitled letter on a patient brochure for Amgen's Sensipar.