Searching for Pharma

It seems that the pharmaceutical industry is either taking direction literally or running scared.

Search, SEM, Sponsored links.

Remember earlier this year when the FDA sent warning letters to almost every pharmaceutical company regarding practices around online search. The FDA maintains that, just like with any other communication media, information around benefits and risks must be balanced. Even with search.

So in other words, when a brand talks about what that the drug does, it must also talk about the risks associated with it. In some places that's easier to do than in others. Certainly search creates a challenge.

The response from pharmaceutical companies? According to an AdAge article today, the industry has severely dropped its use of sponsored links (paid search) by 84%: http://adage.com/article?article_id=139500

Makes sense, actually. As an industry we need to figure out the rules of engagement here and as an industry we need to work with the FDA to come up with a good solution around these kinds of issues. As an industry, we have not done that yet.

Enter the upcoming Open Forum from the FDA. Good call and long overdue. I look forward to it.

Hope this finds you well -- Jim.