Actor Chris Noth, of Sex the City and Law & Order: Criminal Intent fame, has been named Novo Nordisk’s latest spokesperson for DTC diabetes campaign, Ask.Screen.Know. The campaign, which launched nationally more than three years ago, works to educate Americans 45 years and older on their risk for diabetes, type 2 in particular.
The UK’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) slapped Bayer HealthCare over two tweets posted about a melt-in-mouth version of Levitra, for ED, and MS drug Sativex. The Levitra tweet, without citing the product by name, “referred to its qualities, indication and launch,” said the PMCPA, in a way that could lead members of the public to ask their doctors about it.
At Matthew Herper’s Forbes blog, former Merck exec Peter DeVilbiss commented: “If there was a regulatory mandate for all pharma companies to cease direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs and vaccines, what would happen? It is not clear to me that this would be a death knell for the industry. I think it’s reasonable to assume that revenues would fall, but the big question is whether costs would fall more? I’m not so sure that pharma wouldn’t be better off in a few ways.”
From the August 01, 2011 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
