A Manhattan Research survey found that “nearly two in five online Europeans would like to be able to learn more about prescription drugs directly from a pharmaceutical company,” with Italians most keen on interacting with pharmas and Germans least interested.
That data point may gladden advocates of liberalizing the strict restrictions on drug company contacts with consumers that typify marketing regulations in the EU and EU member countries. The European Commission has flirted in recent years with loosening restrictions, but ratcheted back on that with a proposed policy update released in this past fall.
Europeans were less interested in getting online contests and games from pharmas than they were practical resources like disease and treatment information or condition management tools, and they were largely disinterested in visiting pharma Facebook or Twitter pages.
The findings came from Manhattan Research’s Cybercitizen Health Europe 2011 survey of 3,020 adults in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
