Celebrex DTC Advertising Was Suspended By Pfizer During 2005 At Request Of FDA

Some people may have noticed recently that Pfizer Inc. is advertising its blockbuster drug Celebrex, again, in full-page color ads appearing in several magazines.

In December 2004 the FDA requested Pfizer to suspend direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of Celebrex because of the painkiller’s apparent link to serious side effects such as heart attacks and strokes.  According to an April 19, 2005 article by Bloomberg News, however, the FDA (rather quietly) withdrew this suspension request back on August 1, 2005, after Pfizer had strengthened warnings on the package insert, or label, for Celebrex.  This Bloomberg News article also reported on some of the backlash that has been created by this new Celebrex DTC advertising:

”While Celebrex has not been pulled from the market, its risk-benefit profile is controversial and I question whether advertising a drug like this to consumers is good for the public health," US Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said in an e-mailed statement on April 7 after seeing a copy of one of the ads.

” ‘Public health be damned’ is basically what this amounts to," said Sidney Wolfe, director of health research at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer group based in Washington, in an April 7 telephone interview. Wolfe, a critic of the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, hadn’t seen the ads.

Celebrex sales reportedly fell almost 50% in 2005 – during which Celebrex DTC advertising was suspended – so we are likely to see more of these new Celebrex ads in the weeks and months to come.

(Posted by: Tom Lamb)