Why Is The Marketing Of A Weight-Loss Drug Controversial?

There are a lot of rules to follow when it comes to life science marketing, which ensures that any product is not making medical claims that it does not have evidence to justify and that medicines are not inappropriately being marketed to people who lack the medical expertise to sift fact from fiction.

This is why the golden rule of marketing medicines is that it is strictly forbidden to market a prescription medicine to the public, with rules such as the CAP Code 12.12, and similar rules under the MHRA Blue Guide and the ABPI Code of Practice (Clause 26.1).

The latter code, administered by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) ended up having to intervene in the thorny and controversial issue of what happens when a prescription medicine goes viral.

This is something that the advertising rules are designed to stop, but the popularity of the diabetes and weight management injectable medication semaglutide (sold as Ozempic and Wegovy respectively) thanks to some notable studies led to a level of popularity that opened an ethical minefield.

There is nothing to stop people from talking about their experiences with a particular prescription medication on social media, and journalists can write news stories and opinion pieces about prescription medications as long as there are no conflicts of interest.

However, the line that should not be crossed is where an article or social media post ends up promoting said medication, and the PMCPA found that Novo Nordisk had crossed that line through its involvement with a Sunday Times article.

This interview contained several positive statements acknowledged by Novo Nordisk themselves to potentially influence a person with obesity to ask about a specific prescription medication, something that is banned under multiple medicine and advertising codes.

Ultimately, doctors are in the best position to make medical decisions regarding prescription medicines, and the focus of marketing efforts should be business-to-doctor, rather than business-to-customer.