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* Two competing drugs are focusing on weight loss as serious medicine and are targeting selected physicians in their promotional efforts: Abbott has dropped consumer advertising in favor of promoting Meridia to physicians and Roche has reduced its field force size and will deemphasize sales efforts to primary care in favor of more targeted physicians.
Roche ran into trouble when it used an unbranded broadcast ad to support its Xenical weight-loss program, which the FDA found to be, in effect, a product-- specific commercial since it talked about use of Xenicare which tied it to the drug. Roche said it removed the offending reference and plans to continue advertising.
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