FDA Seeks Advice From Blogger; Google Solves Pharma's Ad Problems

(MoneyWatch)  The FDA sought the advice of John Mack, a blogger with 20,000 monthly readers who runs the Pharma Marketing Blog, on how drug companies should use the web to advertise their products. The agency usually likes to hear from lawyers, drug company executives and academics when it seeks regulatory advice.

The FDA is holding a two-day hearing on whether it should change its drug advertising rules to help pharmaceutical companies use "Web 2.0" and social media without falling afoul of FDA regulations. The hearings come after the FDA warned 14 drug companies for using Google ads that did not disclose drug side effect warnings; the companies attest that it is virtually impossible to squeeze those warnings into such tiny ads. Google testified at the hearings that it had a solution to that (below).

But the FDA's selection of Mack as one of the speakers to address its panel has raised eyebrows in the business, if BNET's email inbox is to be believed. Some point out that a survey Mack relies on in his testimony was simply a SurveyMonkey poll that Mack attached to his blog in order to poll his own readers. -- i.e. not a representative sample. (For context, BNET Pharma has at least five times as many readers as Pharma Marketing Blog.)

Mack is clearly presenting himself with tongue firmly in cheek. Among his qualifications he cites two satirical cartoon characters he invented when commenting on regulatory issues:

Creator of "PhRMA Intern" and "FDA Intern" -- strange bedfellows or mortal enemies?

Mack has already been cited by Reuters for his efforts.

More significantly, Google showed up to solve the Google ad problem (pictured below). PharmExec noted:

According to Mary Ann Belliveau, Google's director of health care advertising, the new ads will include both brand name and health care information, as well as a brand URL. To make the ads FDA compliant, each unit will include an abridged warning notice that links to the full risk information. The lead subject line will link to the brand site, so each ad will have two different URLs linking to two different locations.

Neat!

• Previously:
• FDA's Web 2.0 Hearing Recalls Its Unintentionally Hilarious Panel From 1996: "What Is the Internet?"
• FDA to Hold Hearing on Social Media, Web 2.0; Long Overdue Guidance Could Be On Its Way