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FDA To Hold Hearings On Social-Media Use By Drug Makers

  • Ad Age, Thursday, September 24, 2009 10:08 AM
Pharmaceutical companies in a quandary about what they can and cannot do on Web 2.0 are welcoming news that the Food and Drug Administration will hold a two-day public hearing on the issue Nov. 12-13 in Washington, Rich Thomaselli reports. Ad agencies that specialize in health-care marketing say the hearings, and any resulting guidelines, will be helpful for the industry which, by and large, has avoided participating in social media for fear of an FDA warning letter.

"It's about time," says an executive for one top-five pharmaceutical company. "Any guidance at all is better than having no guidance, which is what we have right now."

"Although the agency believes that many issues can be addressed through existing FDA regulations, special characteristics of Web 2.0 and other emerging technologies may require the agency to provide additional guidance to the industry on how the regulations should be applied," the FDA wrote in the Federal Register.

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