Big Pharma Pilots, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson Single-Page Drug Info Sheet

In eight to 10 weeks, health communications firm Catalina Health and three drugmakers are slated to find out if their effort to simplify drug information is working. The pilot results would bookend a project that started in 2008 when Catalina and seven other parties filed a citizen's petition asking the FDA to reconsider the sheaves of information that typically get stapled to a prescription bag. Catalina EVP and general counsel Clair DeMatteis told MM&M that the group met with the FDA to show them the problem. Using a recent information leaflet for Pfizer's Celebrex as an example, she noted the small type and that the copy went on for four pages, yet this was just one informational component.