The FDA promised to deliver a guidance on social media marketing by the end of this year. Unfortunately, the agency announced that it will fail to meet its own deadline. But as Pharmalot reports, the guidance has been officially postponed until the first quarter of 2011.
The pharma industry has been demanding and waiting for these guidelines for years. The agency took some steps such as holding a public hearing on the topic of social media in which participants presented their opinions about regulatory supervision of pharma’s online activities.
What does this delay means for industry? For now, there seem to be at least two options for pharmaceutical marketers: (1) keep doing what they’re doing in social media marketing, and ask for permission later; (2) what for the guidance and then start doing. There’s no panacea here. Each company has to decide for itself what is the right course of action. Either way, the waiting game isn’t much of an end-of-year present.
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