Do Desperate Consumers Believe Cancer Drug DTC Ads?

In a recent NYT OpEd piece, Matt Jablow, whose wife died of lung cancer, called the TV ads for BMS's cancer drug Opdivo "utterly misleading and exploitive" and said that if BMS really wishes to thank patients like his wife who participated in the Opdivo drug trials, it should pull the ads (read the OpEd piece here).

The Opdivo ad had already been criticized during an investor conference call by a Deutsche Bank analyst who questioned the value of direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads to promote Opdivo (here). Of course, the analyst was more concerned about BMS wasting money on ads that would have no effect on the sales of the drug, which are likely to grow "whether or not the company promoted the drug to patients."

The FDA has proposed (see here) to re-study the effect of superimposed text, or text placed over an image, on viewers' understanding of a DTC ad like that for Opdivo, which super-impose the words "A Chance to Live Longer"on buildings in big, bold text.

Meanwhile, some drug industry advertising experts have criticized Jablow's OpEd piece itself as being "disingenuous."

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