Helping Health Professionals identify trusted product advertising

For 54 years, PAAB has been recognized by Health Canada as the Advertising Preclearance Agency for health professional directed health product advertising.

Do drug ads have the potential to deliver value to health professionals?

Time is precious, and the volume of medical literature is vast. Health professional-directed drug advertising can deliver value by generating awareness of emerging therapies, uses, and data. This awareness can aid health professionals in effectively targeting their ongoing professional development activities.

How can this potential value be unlocked?

The full potential of drug advertising is realized only when it provides comprehensive, credible information that enables health professionals to make informed judgments about the content’s validity and applicability to their practice. The PAAB logo signifies that this potential has been unlocked through a rigorous, independent review process, ensuring that health professionals receive the complete story.

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COMMENTS

Healthcare Professional

Health product advertising is designed to inform about new and evolving treatment approaches. However, not all advertising meets high standards.

Materials that bear the PAAB logo signify that they have undergone a rigorous independent review process, ensuring that they are:

Evidence based and consistent with current medical practice 

All claims contained therein are supported by valid and representative evidence. Annual renewal ensures that claims continue to reflect the marketplace. Clinical trials featured in advertising are accompanied by transparent disclosure of key study limitations to enable you to efficiently determine whether the study is of value to you.



Balanced with respect to risk and benefit

The PAAB Code requires transparent disclosure of risk information from the promoted medication’s Health Canada approved product monograph so as to promote optimal patient selection.



Consistent with the Health Canada approved label

Advertising may not be inconsistent with the Health Canada approved product monograph.

You have a voice

PAAB adjudicates complaints on healthcare professional advertising for healthcare products such as prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, natural health products, and homeopathy products. You can launch a complaint.

When & How to Launch a Complaint

Would you like to share your views on advertising standards?

In order to ensure that PAAB meets the needs of Health Canada, health professionals and patients, regular reviews of the PAAB Code are undertaken. PAAB would like to invite Canadian health professionals to be part of this process by registering with us.

  1. Receive occasional invites to participate in research relating to the PAAB Code.

    For example, you may be invited to participate in: ·
    • Online advisory boards with your peers
    • Online surveys
    • Telephone interviews
    * A mixture of volunteer and paid opportunities will be available
  2. Opt-in to receive updates that may be relevant to your work, such as changes to the Code or complaint rulings from HCP filed complaints.
  3. Opportunity to apply to speak at PAAB’s national conference (successful applicants will be reimbursed).

Would you like to help us shape advertising standards toward optimal usefulness to you and your peers? Leave your details below:

Preclearance FAQs

What is preclearance?

The PAAB runs a preclearance mechanism. Preclearance is a process during which the advertising is reviewed and revised as many times as necessary for the advertising to be deemed to meet all provisions in the PAAB Code of Advertising Acceptance. We refer to it as preclearance (rather than simply clearance) because the entire process takes place before the advertising is used in the marketplace. Canada is one of the few jurisdictions in the world that employs such a robust preventative approach to keep the market clean of misleading advertising. Many other countries rely solely on a monitoring mechanism to react to misleading advertising some time after market exposure. PAAB also employs a monitoring mechanism but this is complementary to preclearance rather than in place of it.

How does PAAB's work unlock the value of drug ads?

In a world overflowing with medical content, diligent health professionals must be selective about where they invest their research, reading, and development hours. While health professionals do not typically base their medical practice on drug advertising, health professional-targeted drug ads play a crucial role in creating initial awareness of emerging therapies, uses, and issues. This awareness sparks ideas about which emerging therapeutic research you may want to explore further.

We ensure that health professional-targeted advertising contains the information you need to make informed conclusions about the validity and generalizability of the data, allowing you to quickly assess its relevance to your practice. On the frontier of healthcare, no study is perfect or universally applicable. That’s why we prioritize transparency in conveying study limitations, enabling you to focus on the science and decide whether the information is worth pursuing further—either within the ad or through independent research.

Why does this matter?

Health professional judgement and prescribing behaviour may be influenced by drug advertising. This may even be the case in the subgroup of health professionals who consider themselves to be “immune” to advertising. Note that even health professionals who refuse to accept visits from drugs representatives are exposed to advertising. PAAB believes that advertising plays an important role in providing timely information to health professionals. The key is that it must be accurate, complete, clear and designed to promote credibility and trust. This is where the PAAB preclearance mechanism fits in.

PAAB’s Commitment to you

We not only ensure that study limitations and relevant drug risks are clearly disclosed in the advertisement, but we also do so in a way that helps you quickly determine whether the information benefits your practice. That is our commitment to you. Ultimately, we aim to empower you to focus on what truly matters: matching the right products with the right patients. Consider making this commitment to yourself: when it comes to drug promotion, let the PAAB logo be your filtering criterion. If you don’t see it, move on.

Is PAAB preclearance recognized?

Yes. Although the PAAB is independent from both Health Canada and the pharmaceutical industry, the PAAB is the only regulator whose preclearance service is recognized by Health Canada for advertising directed to health professionals. Additionally, the member publishers of the Canadian Association of Medical Publishers (CAMP) have committed that all health product advertising subject to the PAAB code carry the PAAB logo. PAAB benefits from having open lines of communication with Health Canada. In fact, Health Canada attends meetings of the PAAB Board of Directors as a non-voting observer. See the composition of the PAAB Board of Directors. This might be the first time you have heard about PAAB. That’s because PAAB has been quietly effective. We’ve been running our preclearance mechanism in Canada for over 40 years. See our timeline from inception to now.

Resources

Click here to see the resources on our website which are particularly relevant to you. For example, we’ve collated a list of documents that outline some of the federal drug advertising regulations which impact you directly. Did you know that health professionals need to be cautious not to contravene federal drug advertising regulations when promoting medical services in the context of medicines?

Resources

Set up a visit

Are you a representative from a healthcare professional association, institution, or university? Contact us at info@paab.ca if you’d like PAAB to come visit your group to perform a presentation about what we do and why we do it.

We inform

Click here to see the resources on our website which are particularly relevant to you. For example, we’ve collated a list of documents that outline some of the federal drug advertising regulations which impact you directly. Did you know that healthcare professionals need to be cautious not to contravene federal drug advertising regulations when promoting medical services in the context of medicines?

Resources

HCP
Resources

View All Resources

Useful Links for Health Professionals

File a complaint

PAAB adjudicates complaints on health professional advertising for health products such as prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, natural health products, and homeopathy products. You can launch a complaint.

Learn More

Invite PAAB to speak

Are you a representative from a health professional association, institution, or university? Contact us at info@paab.ca if you’d like PAAB to come visit your group to speak about what we do and why we do it.

Email

Resources

Did you know that health professionals need to be cautious not to contravene federal drug advertising regulations when promoting medical services in the context of medicines? Click here to see the resources on our website which are particularly relevant to you.

Learn More

Fictious drug and advertisement
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