China Medical News

It has been reported that the SFDA(State Food and Drug Administration) will revise the "Medicine Advertisement Examination Rule" on Sep. 25th to restrict or ban OTC drug advertising in the mass media. On Sep. 27th, the chairman of China's OTC drug association, Mr. Bai HuiLiang, confirmed that: on Sep.28th, the SFDA and other departments will organize a professional meeting to discuss this issue; whether OTC advertising will be limited or not is still under discussion.
According to China's OTC drug association, the market size of OTC medicine in 2011 increased to approximately 140 billion RMB, at least 5% of which was turned to advertising expenses.
If OTC advertisement is forbidden, it is expected that both the pharmaceutical and advertisement industries will receive a blow.