A long-awaited guidance on the use of social media by FDA-regulated industry, including such popular electronic communications platforms as Facebook and Twitter, will be available in draft form for public comment “within a month.”  This estimate was provided by special assistant to the director of CDER’s Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC), Jean-Ah Kang, who spoke 2/22 in Washington, DC at the Marketing Pharmaceuticals 2011 Conference, sponsored by the Drug Information Association.

 

Although many companies have been reluctant to utilize the social media, particularly in the absence of FDA guidance, others have begun to use these media in addition to more traditional Internet-based promotional Web sites. According to Kang, in 2010, fully 22% of corporate submissions to DDMAC were for advertising/promotional Web sites. And, during this same period, she said 30% of Warning and untitled letters, citing sponsors for advertising/promotion violations, were Internet-related — indicating that Web-based communications are both of growing importance to sponsors and that they also have their share of problems... (Read More)

 

Read the full report on FDA's social media guidance at FDA Webview (www.fdaweb.com)