FiercePharma | Beth Snyder Bulik
Consumers don’t always read the risk
information on branded drug websites--even though they say they do, according
to new eye-tracking research from the University of Tennessee. Risk disclosures
are a hot-button issue in pharma marketing, with some critics accusing brands
of downplaying the risks and marketers contending that they follow the rules
laid out by the FDA.
For the eye-tracking study, two advertising
professors used the technique on 29 seasonal allergy sufferers to determine
where and how long they looked at a branded drug website, then followed up with
interviews about how much the people read and what they remembered. The participants
were told the study was looking at how people look for health information
online and that the website was for a new prescription allergy drug.
The key finding? Even though 80% of the
participants said they read half or more of the website information, they
actually read much less than that and had limited recall of the drug’s risks.
Further, the study found consumers focused on the drug’s benefit and generally
ignored the risks.
That figure wouldn't necessarily hold true for
other drugs, though. Mariea Hoy, who fielded the research along with former UT
faculty member Abbey Levenshus, said perceived familiarity in the case of the
seasonal allergy drug may have played a role in participants ignoring risks
they thought they already knew about or didn’t believe would affect them.
“There are so many factors that may be
influencing a person when looking at the drug website. Our study found that for
individuals who perceived themselves to be familiar with the condition and the
drugs that treated it, and subsequently thought ‘it's just an allergy drug,’
they were only looking for benefits and subsequently ignored the risk
information,” Hoy said in an email interview with FiercePharma.
When asked about the possibility of typical
consumer ad-ignoring behavior as a factor, she said the study didn't
investigate it, nor did interviews reveal that people were ignoring risks on
branded drug websites out of habit.
Hoy, who recently presented the findings to the
FTC and has shared the same information with the FDA, also offered some
suggestions on how to get people to read more drug risk information.
Pharma companies should try to identify why
people aren’t reading the risks, she said. Are they trying to avoid negative
information? Do they think they already know the risks? Do they discount the
risks for themselves, with the it-won’t-happen-to-me mindset known as “optimum
bias?"
One clear way to get people to pay more
attention to risks is to present them first, before the benefits, Hoy said.
When there are risks that are unique or novel to the drug class, flag them
either verbally or visually to draw more attention.
“The goal is to create a sense of unfamiliarity
so that they won't presume they already know the risks simply because they've
taken medication for the condition before,” she said.
Critics and government agencies have come down
on drugmakers for their risk-disclosure tactics, namely skimping on risks and
pumping up benefits. A recent
FDA-commissioned study, for instance, found that cancer drug websites load up
on numbers about treatment benefits, but go light on details about their risks.
Another flap around Bristol-Myers Squibb cancer drug Opdivo advertising
centered around a cancer patient husband who called the pharma's DTC ads
“misleading and exploitative,” spurring opposing sides to take up arguments for
and against DTC advertising in a pair of JAMA articles.
