P rofessional A dvertising T oday Agency structures evolved to make the best use of the evolving digital landscape to help healthcare clients reach physician and patient target audiences. A host of new media platforms—with names like search engines, e-mail marketing, social networks, blogs, webinars, and podcasts—emerged. To better develop and position advertising messages in this new environment, talent skilled in electronic media as well as audience targeting was added to most agency service offerings, and agencies with specific electronic platform skills were created. For many established US healthcare agencies, the 1990s also saw the institution of account planning— a practice first established in European consumer agencies. Utilizing a variety of market and research data, the account planner acted as the voice of an evolving and expanding healthcare audience in an agency's creative development process. A consolidation in the pharmaceutical manufacturing and service sectors, along with the continued emergence of managed care, have been significant forces in healthcare delivery over the past 20 years, and their influence continues today. In addition to the traditional physician audience, consumers, patients, and caregivers have become an important audience for healthcare advertising. The biotechnology, device, and diagnostic sectors also matured and became a considerable source of new medicines, procedures, and advertising opportunities. In 1984, the Waxman-Hatch Act streamlined the FDA review process for new drugs and expedited the introduction of generics. An important initiative which helped speed FDA regulatory reviews was the 1992 Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), which allowed pharmaceutical companies to pay fees enabling the FDA to speed the review time for new drug applications (NDAs). age had a profound impact on the advertising business in general and the healthcare agency business in particular 85
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