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Drug Information Site

NEW YORK -- About 45 million consumers are surfing the Web for prescription drug information, up from 10 million four years ago. And direct-to-consumer advertising, with its $3.5 billion price tag, is helping to guide them there, with younger consumers and women most likely to search out drug information online, according to "The Future of DTC," a recent study from Manhattan Research, a New York City-based firm that monitors 35 health conditions and 75 drug product Web sites.

Consumers already on a prescription medication are more likely to look to the Web as an educational tool. The research firm also reported that consumers suffering from anxiety, erectile dysfunction, depression, high cholesterol and diabetes are more likely to seek out information from a drug product Web site than consumers suffering from other conditions.

The abundance of information available at the click of a mouse has consumers looking online before talking with their doctors about a potential drug treatment.

Outside of self- or physician-directed Web surfers are those hitting the Web at the direction of a DTC ad.

"We increasingly are seeing drug ads on primetime TV directing consumers to go online," said Mark Bard, president of Manhattan Research, who noted that today, more than 95 percent of consumers surfing the Web for prescription drug information can recall the DTC ad that directed them there.

The Internet, Bard explained, provides a level of information and interaction impossible with TV or print ads. Of the 45 million consumers slogging through Web sites to find more information, 34 million fall into a category that requires some level of customer service. Legal and regulatory issues, however, create roadblocks as to how far drug companies can go when interacting with consumers--an area in which the Web allows perhaps a greater degree of flexibility.

"Unfortunately, most pharmaceutical companies are not embracing this option and opening the door to interactive communication online," Bard said. "This remains an opportunity for many information providers, such as health portals, retail pharmacy and health plans."

The top three online sources include the general health portal WebMD, the online search engine Google and drug product Web sites, with www.Lipitor.com getting the most hits.

But consumers are about half as likely to visit a drug store retailer's Web site as other online sources. "However, we see continued opportunities for retail pharmacies and online drug stores to provide detailed information about drug-drug comparisons and pricing, an area that remains an opportunity online today," Bard sad.

What remains to be seen is the future of DTC advertising, which today is standing on shaky ground in light of Food and Drug Administration discourse over the practice, heightened by recent safety scares over once heavily promoted drugs like Vioxx and Celebrex. The current environment has advertising agencies predicting a shrunken DTC ad business in early 2005. Those same concerns, however, could serve to fuel online traffic further.

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