Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20122

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Pharmaceutical companies taken to court for forbidden drug advertising
The Volkskrant 2000 Jan 227

Full text:

The Healthcare Inspection Office of the Netherlands has brought a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies Roche and GlaxoWellcome due to unacceptable direct to consumer advertising for pharmaceuticals. Both companies placed advertisements which referred to Internet pages which gave more specific information about their drugs. The Inspection Office has found that they violated the Advertising Law by doing so.

Roche’s advertisements provide information about obesity and refer to an Internet page which contains information about its drug orlistat (brand name Xenical).

A spokesperson for Roche pointed out that it included only official texts (the summary of product characteristics, the patient information leaflet and the European Public Assessment Report (EPAR) which also can be found elsewhere in the Internet. According to him, it is “common practice” that such documents are published on the Internet. GlaxoWellcome is carrying out an advertising campaign to stop smoking and refers to an Internet page with information about their “anti-smoking pill” buproprion (brandname: Zyban).