Drug promotion in Australia: policy contestation and the tightening of regulation

This paper describes developments in Australia’s regulation of prescription drug marketing and promotion. We show that the pharmaceutical industry has proved less capable of shaping the regulation of promotion than other areas of pharmaceutical policy. Public health advocates have effectively highlighted the negative impact of promotion on quality use of medicines. While consumers have long been assumed to be in need of protection from drug promotion, it is now accepted that marketing to medical professionals should also be more closely controlled. Government has responded by tightening such regulation but has stopped short of ending industry self-regulation