Several news organizations - the Wall Street Journal and American Public Media's Marketplace - have reported that the Food and Drug Administration has reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical industry that would require companies, for the first time, to pay fees to the FDA for the work of reviewing their TV drug ads, in exchange for speedier reviews. The Wall Street Journal story included this line: “The FDA is unusual among federal agencies because it negotiates with the companies it regulates, which are represented by their major trade organizations, over the amount and use of fees the industry pays to the agency.“
“Unusual” is mild. Controversial is more direct and appropriate. The current system of industry user fees has been criticized because of the potential pressure and conflict of interest it places on reviewers. In the Marketplace piece, Professor Steven Schondelmeyer of the University of Minnesota says, "It does create sort of a provider-client relationship where the agency begins to view that they're working for the industry that they're regulating, moreso than they're working for the public as a whole."
Don’t expect this move, if it happens, to put much more than a little speed-bump in the path of the runaway and troublesome TV drug ad business.
Advertising Age reports that such advertising budgets have boomed in the past ten years, from $12 million to $4.1 billion.
Posted by schwitz at December 11, 2006 07:38 AM | TrackBack