Marketing for pharmaceutical and health product companies
In Canada you may not advertise a prescription product to the public beyond its name, price and quantity. In the United States you may, with the risks carried alongside. Who you are talking to decides the whole campaign.
We have built and cleared regulated health marketing on both sides of that line, through PAAB review and through the US process.
What we are hired for Demand for a product whose claims are fixed by the label before anyone writes a word
3 health brands taken to market2 audiences, public and prescriber2 review bodies, PAAB and ASC2 countries we write for
The constraint here
The audience decides the claim.
Four combinations of product and audience across two countries, and only one of them lets you put a branded claim in front of the public. The first question on any engagement is which one you are in.
Two countries, four audiences.
Food and Drugs Act · PAAB · ASC · FDA
We build to the audience first. Everything below is what changes when you move between them.
What each audience permits, and what has to travel with the claim.
Question
CanadaPrescription, to the public
CanadaPrescription, to prescribers
CanadaNon-prescription
United StatesPrescription, to the public
May you make a branded claim to the public?
No. Name, price and quantity only
Not applicable, this audience is prescribers
Yes, within the authorised use
Yes, with the risks carried alongside it
Who reviews it before it runs
Health Canada policy sets the limit
PAAB, against the product monograph
Advertising Standards Canada, and Health Canada where required
Your own medical, legal and regulatory review, then submitted to the FDA at first use
What has to sit with the claim
Nothing, because there is no claim to make
Fair balance, and the terms of market authorisation
The authorised use, and the cautions that go with it
The major statement of risks, and a way to reach the full prescribing information
What will end the campaign
Naming the product and the condition in the same advertisement
Anything outside the monograph, or a comparison without head to head evidence
A claim beyond the authorised use
Off label promotion, or efficacy without the risks beside it
What marketing still runs
Unbranded disease awareness, and help seeking advertisements
Congress, prescriber portals, sales aids, medical education
The full funnel, cleared, including paid media
The full funnel, with the risk statement built into every format
What we run here
Prescriber demand, built for PAAB review rather than repaired after it
Unbranded disease awareness that can reach the public without naming the product
Over the counter acquisition, cleared and running paid media
Patient support and adherence programmes, and the consent that has to sit under them
How we scope the work, not regulatory advice. Your medical, legal and regulatory reviewers decide; we build what is allowed underneath that decision, and we tell you which ideas will not survive before you pay to produce them.
Every one of these is a real category of rejection. The left column is what an agency without the background writes. The right column is what runs, and it still sells.
Not approved
Ask your doctor about Brandname for migraine relief.
Not approvedMore compliant
Migraine has treatment options. Talk to your doctor.*
*Unbranded disease awareness. No product is named or implied. Sponsored by the company name.More compliant
Why the first one dies.It names a prescription product and its condition in the same advertisement, to the public, in Canada. That combination is the line. You may run an unbranded advertisement about the condition, or a reminder advertisement carrying the product name and nothing else, but not both at once.
The point of all of it
This is what the rulebook allows.
Proof, not promises
Work that ran inside the rules.
Health brands where the claim was fixed by the label and the growth had to come from somewhere else.
Health products · Prescriber and public
When the claim is fixed, the growth has to come from distribution and demand.
We worked on health brands where the wording was settled by the monograph before marketing got involved. That is the interesting constraint: you cannot out-claim anyone, so you win on where you show up, how the prescriber hears about it, and whether the patient can find you at the moment they are looking. Every asset went through review before it ran.
Not tools we own. Not tools we own. The platforms your prescribers, your pharmacists and your patients pass through, and the places they search before they reach your site.
Platforms we build and run inside
Where we buy the attention
Where AI answers your buyer questions
What we do here
Eight things, and two of them nobody else offers.
Scoped against your monograph, your audience and your reviewer, before anyone opens a design file.
What a typical agency covers, against what we cover. Two of the eight are the reason firms call us.
Capability
What it means
A typical agency
Web Worx Labs
Compliance guidance before you spend
At concept stage, not round three
No
Yes
QA, review and standards
One written standard, claims traced
No
Yes
Paid acquisition
Cost per booked meeting, not form fills
Yes
Yes
Social that builds reach and engagement
Organic and paid, approval trail attached
Yes
Yes
Strategy and execution support
The plan, and the hands to run it
Yes
Yes
CRM lifecycle and support
Salesforce, Veeva-adjacent workflows, HubSpot
Yes
Yes
Web, prescriber portals and patient programmes
A label change without a developer
Yes
Yes
SEO, AI search, video and content
Found months before they ever call
Yes
Yes
The first two are why firms call us. Most agencies cannot offer them, because they have never owned the number inside a regulated firm.
Tell us what you are launching, and who may hear about it
Send us the product, the audience you are allowed to reach, the review process you sit under, and the number you are accountable for. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right firm for it, and what we would do first.
