Pfizer Voluntarily Withdraws Lipitor Advertising Featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik

[Pharma Newshound]

Source: Pfizer Press Release

Pfizer Voluntarily Withdraws Lipitor Advertising Featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik

Company Commits to Ensuring Greater Clarity Regarding Spokespeople

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pfizer said today that it is voluntarily withdrawing Lipitor advertising and promotion featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik and committing to ensuring greater clarity in the roles and responsibilities of its spokespeople in its consumer advertising and promotion.

Commenting on the withdrawal of the Jarvik advertising and promotion, Pfizer’s President of Worldwide Pharmaceutical Operations Ian Read said:

“The consumer advertising featuring Dr. Jarvik, a well-respected heart expert and inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, provided valuable and medically accurate information about the risks of high cholesterol and how Lipitor can help patients reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke. Direct-to-consumer advertising is an important way to provide consumers with information about their health and treating disease, and at least 29 million Americans have talked to their physicians about a health condition for the first time after seeing a pharmaceutical advertisement.

“Nevertheless, the way in which we presented Dr. Jarvik in these ads has, unfortunately, led to misimpressions and distractions from our primary goal of encouraging patient and physician dialogue on the leading cause of death in the world -- cardiovascular disease. We regret this. Going forward, we commit to ensuring there is greater clarity in our advertising regarding the presentation of spokespeople.

“Raising awareness of the dangers of cardiovascular disease in the U.S. remains an urgent public health priority. Only half of all Americans who have high LDL cholesterol are even diagnosed, and just half of those are being treated. Future Lipitor campaigns, to be launched in several weeks, will continue to stress the critical importance of patients talking to their doctors so they can make informed choices about their treatment options,” he added.

The benefits of statins such as Lipitor in treating heart disease are validated in clinical guidelines including those from the National Institutes of Health National Cholesterol Education Program, the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and the American Diabetes Association. Lipitor has an established safety profile across the full dose range which is based on more than 15 years of clinical trial experience and nearly 144 million patient-years of experience.

[Pharma Newshound]

Source: AdAge

[Also see: "Pfizer Flips. Jarvik Flops!"]

Under Congressional Pressure, Drug Maker Says Dr. Jarvik Spot Was Misleading

By Ira Teinowitz

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- Pfizer said today [Feb. 25] it will pull its Lipitor ad featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, and promised to do a better job of clearly presenting spokespeople in future advertising.

The House energy and commerce committee suggested that the ad presents Dr. Jarvik as a medical expert when most of his career has involved the invention of the artificial heart.

The House energy and commerce committee suggested that the ad presents Dr. Jarvik as a medical expert when most of his career has involved the invention of the artificial heart.

The company announced its decision today under pressure from leaders of the House energy and commerce committee.

Ian Read, Pfizer's president-worldwide pharmaceutical operations, said in a statement that while the Dr. Jarvik ad offered valuable and medically accurate information on the risks of Lipitor and how it can help patients with high cholesterol reduce their risk of heart attack, its presentation was misleading.

'Misimpressions and distractions'
"The way in which we presented Dr. Jarvik in these ads has, unfortunately, led to misimpressions and distractions from our primary goal of encouraging patient and physician dialogue on the leading cause of death in the world -- cardiovascular disease," he said. "We regret this. Going forward, we commit to ensuring there is greater clarity in our advertising regarding the presentation of spokespeople in the statement."

The Lipitor ads from Kaplan Thaler Group feature Dr. Jarvik saying he's a user of the product and apparently rowing a boat. It turned out the rowing was done by a stunt double, and Dr. Jarvik didn't start taking Lipitor until after he was hired by Pfizer. The House committee also has suggested that the ad presents Dr. Jarvik as a medical expert when most of his career has involved the invention of the artificial heart.

Committee Chairman John D. Dingell, D-Mich., and Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of the panel, praised the drug maker's decision.

"Pfizer's decision was a wise one, and I am pleased our investigation prompted the removal of Lipitor ads featuring Dr. Jarvik," Mr. Dingell said. "We trust that Pfizer is sincere in its commitment to 'greater clarity' in its advertising. My colleagues and I look forward to meeting with Pfizer's management team to discuss their plans related to direct-to-consumer advertising."

Mr. Stupak said Pfizer was doing "the right thing," but "we will continue to investigate the deception that occurs in direct-to-consumer advertising of medications, including Pfizer's Lipitor campaign. We plan to meet with Dr. Jarvik, collect all of the documents we've requested and closely review the facts. Drug companies should know that they will be held accountable for the representations made in their ads."

[Pharma Newshound]

Source: NY Times

By STEPHANIE SAUL

Under criticism that its ads are misleading, Pfizer said Monday that it would cancel a long-running advertising campaign using the artificial heart pioneer Robert Jarvik as a spokesman for its cholesterol drug Lipitor.

Pfizer has spent more than $258 million advertising Lipitor since January 2006, most of it on the Jarvik campaign, as the company sought to protect Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug, from competition by cheaper generics.

But the campaign had come under scrutiny from a Congressional committee that is examining consumer drug advertising and has asked whether the ads misrepresented Dr. Jarvik and his credentials. Although he has a medical degree, Dr. Jarvik is not a cardiologist and is not licensed to practice medicine.

One television ad depicted Dr. Jarvik as an accomplished rower gliding across a mountain lake, but the ad used a body double for the doctor, who apparently does not row.

“The way in which we presented Dr. Jarvik in these ads has, unfortunately, led to misimpressions and distractions from our primary goal of encouraging patient and physician dialogue on the leading cause of death in the world — cardiovascular disease,” Pfizer’s president of worldwide pharmaceutical operations, Ian Read, said in a statement. “We regret this. Going forward, we commit to ensuring there is greater clarity in our advertising regarding the presentation of spokespeople.”

A company spokeswoman, Vanessa Aristide, said that Pfizer was working with its advertising agency, the Kaplan Thaler Group, to develop a new campaign.

Lipitor, with sales of $12.7 billion last year, is protected by patent until 2010. Some patients have, nevertheless, begun switching to a generic version of a competing cholesterol drug, Zocor.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been looking into television ads featuring Dr. Jarvik. The committee disclosed that Pfizer had agreed to pay Dr. Jarvik at least $1.35 million under a two-year contract that expires next month. John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of that committee, raised questions about Dr. Jarvik’s credentials to recommend Lipitor.

Dr. Jarvik, who has recently declined to discuss the Lipitor campaign, could not be reached for comment Monday.

The committee’s investigation has rekindled a debate over the so-called direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals, a $4.8 billion business.

Mr. Dingell and Bart Stupak, another Michigan Democrat who leads an investigations subcommittee, applauded Pfizer’s decision to withdraw the Lipitor ads.

“I commend Pfizer for doing the right thing and pulling the Lipitor ads featuring Dr. Jarvik,” Mr. Stupak said in a statement. “When consumers see and hear a doctor endorsing medication, they expect the doctor is a credible individual with requisite knowledge of the drug.”

While endorsing Pfizer’s decision, the committee showed no sign of shutting down its investigation. Mr. Stupak said the committee planned to meet with Dr. Jarvik and collect all of the documents it had requested.

The committee recently asked 10 advertising agencies that worked on the Dr. Jarvik campaign to submit documents about the use of body doubles.

The committee has also contacted at least one former colleague of Dr. Jarvik’s who contended that he was not the actual inventor of the artificial heart, as stated in the ads.

In a letter to Pfizer in August 2006, three former colleagues of Dr. Jarvik’s at the University of Utah complained that the ads erroneously identified Dr. Jarvik as “inventor of the artificial heart.” That distinction, they said, should go to Dr. Jarvik’s mentor, Dr. Willem J. Kolff, and his associate, Dr. Tetsuzo Akutsu.

Pfizer subsequently changed its ads to identify Dr. Jarvik as the inventor of the “Jarvik artificial heart,” but Dr. Jarvik’s former colleagues, members of a large team that worked on the heart, were not entirely satisfied, according to Dr. Donald B. Olsen, a veterinarian who worked on the heart and is president of the Utah Artificial Heart Institute. Dr. Olsen said he had recently been contacted by the committee.

A long-simmering dispute over assigning credit for the artificial heart boiled over again during a conference last December at the University of Utah. Dr. Jarvik did not attend the conference, which marked the 25th anniversary of the heart’s experimental use to extend the life of Barney Clark, a dentist in Seattle.

During the meeting, another former Utah colleague of Dr. Jarvik’s, Dr. Clifford S. Kwan-Gett, stated that the Jarvik series of hearts were simply different versions of prototypes that Dr. Kwan-Gett had made more than a year earlier.

Dr. Jarvik’s company, Jarvik Heart, subsequently posted a history of the artificial heart’s development on its Web site, giving his own account of the heart’s development. That posting said Dr. Jarvik’s design overcame two problems of the heart developed by Dr. Kwan-Gett.

Jarvik Heart, based in Manhattan, has been working for the last two decades on a continuous-flow pump that can be inserted directly into a patient’s damaged heart to bolster its function.