FDA Tightens Reign on Social Media Practices

When pharmaceutical companies use the 'Facebook Share' application to promote their products, that information must comply with Food and Drug Administration regulations, the agency made clear recently.

The FDA cracked down on Novartis, a multi-national pharmaceutical company, for misuse of the 'Facebook Share' widget on the company's American website for Tasigna, a medicine used to treat certain types of leukemia. The content distributed through the Facebook app is "misleading because it makes representations about the efficacy of Tasigna, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with the use of this drug," the FDA wrote in a letter to Novartis.