PhRMA Proposes FDA-Approved Logo for Marketing in Social Media

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is advocating for a universal safety symbol -- either the Food and Drug Administration logo itself or an FDA-approved symbol -- to indicate that a Twitter or Facebook mention links to a page that contains the pharmaceutical company's FDA-mandated risk information. The lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry made its case during the first day of the two-day U.S. Food and Drug Administration public hearings in Washington. The hearings are designed to establish guidelines for how pharmaceutical companies go to market on the web and social-media sites. And while 31 speakers representing such power players as drug maker Eli Lilly and search giant Google each had 15 minutes to present their respective cases to a 12-member FDA panel, perhaps none was more compelling than the PhRMA, which caught the panel's attention.