The Dramatic Difference In Life Science Marketing In The US

In the United Kingdom, marketing life science products and services is a process that requires a tailored, rigorous approach focused on presenting the facts about a new medication or technology to commissioning bodies, health authorities and some private practices.

It is an involved process for all medicines, whether they are provided via prescription or whether they are sold directly to customers via retail or over the counter at pharmacies.

These rules involve multiple authorities and are complex, with the intention of ensuring that the patients at the end of the process are as informed as possible as to how a medical product works and what it is evidentially proven to be capable of treating.

Whilst some over-the-counter medications are marketed directly to consumers, prescription medications are not. However, across the Atlantic Ocean, the rules, and thus the marketing world that has evolved from them, are exceptionally different.

The United States are, along with New Zealand, one of only two countries in the world that allow prescription medication to be marketed directly to consumers and has been since the beginning of the pharmaceutical industry as we know it.

However, outside of the somewhat notable exception of Boots’ ibuprofen product Rufen, then a prescription medication, no pharmaceutical company wanted to test the rules on advertising directly to patients.

However, in 1997, thanks to a clarification of the rules by the US Food and Drug Administration, the rules for direct-to-customer advertising (DTCA) allowed for adverts that disclosed the major risks of a medication as well as recommendations to consult one’s doctor.

The results have been somewhat mixed and controversial, and it is telling that in the nearly three decades since the landmark FDA clarification and an entire marketing industry forming, no other countries have joined the USA and New Zealand in allowing prescription medication to be marketed to consumers.