This paper discusses the crisis communication strategies used by Merck, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson in problems marketing their specific controversial products.
Abstract This paper explains that Merck's culpability lies in the fact that fully six years before the drug VIOXX was withdrawn from the market, they continued to attempt to dodge and deny rather than holding detailed studies on the cardiovascular risks of the drugs, which has made Merck so vulnerable to court action today. The author points out that when Pfizer Pharmaceuticals found itself in similar trouble with Celebrex, it should have re-submitted Celebrex for safety trial specific to cardiovascular events to the FDA; instead Pfizer, like Merck, bet that marketing the risk versus benefit profile of the drug would be sufficient. The paper relates that Johnson and Johnson plans to make direct to consumer (DTC) advertisements for drugs, such as Levitra and Viagra, more informative; however, the paper stresses that the best decision about whether or not a drug is right for a patient should be left to the physician and his or her patient, not a 30 second television advertisement.
Table of Contents
Merck and VIOXX
Pfizer and Celebrex
Johnson & Johnson and DTC (Direct to Consumer) Marketing
From the Paper "In this case, it is difficult to asses whether Pfizer was being coy surrounding the potential risks of Celebrex or was simply under the impression that the drugs, while sharing the same class and mechanism of action, did not hold the same cardiovascular risks. This assumption could be held up when one thinks of the release of the non-sedating antihistamine Seldane in the 1990s. This drug, originally containing a black box warning (the highest warning made by the FDA) against concurrent use with certain antifungal and antibiotic drugs, was later removed from the market due to a propensity to cause a fatal heart rhythm. A popular drug, it was soon reformulated and is now widely available even as an over-the-counter preparation without these side effects. It could be possible that Pfizer truly felt the initial studies were flawed, but the manner in which they chose to disseminate the data from the first study would seem somewhat underhanded in nature."
