Patient Influencers’ Paid by Big Pharma to Mislead Followers: Report

It’s widely acknowledged nowadays that social media is an incredibly powerful channel for reaching, engaging, and converting a vast target audience – and savvy pharmaceutical companies have certainly taken note of that. Big Pharma has been turning to the major social sites to drum up buzz for their prescription medications, essentially paying so-called ‘patient influencers’ to promote their products under the camouflage of genuine reviews.

Indeed social media platforms have seen a surge of posts and videos from users claiming near-miracle wellness through supplements and prescription medications. On the video-sharing app TikTok, hashtags like #wegovy (270M views), #mounjaro (470M views), #ozempic (705M views), and #adhd (2B views) have been trending month after month.

However you look at it, Big Pharma has found a goldmine in patient influencers on social media. But there’s a dark side to this nascent practice. A new study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research is warning users that sponsored posts by these ‘patient influencers’ can be misleading, especially to their followers.

WEGO Health and the Rise of the Patient Influencers

Recently, a specialized industry of vendors has emerged to find, screen, and nurture patient recruits for various health-related marketing initiatives. One prominent player in this field is WEGO Health, which has rounded up a vast network of more than 100,000 patient advocates covering almost every interest area and health condition.

WEGO claims that their so-called Patient Leaders exert significant influence over how their followers navigate their healthcare and health. Interestingly, each vetted patient influencer within the WEGO network has a blanket influence over an average of 15,000 followers on any given month.

As you might have guessed from their name, patient advocates are social media influencers who leverage their followership and platform to market pharmaceuticals. This is especially true when promoting weight-loss prescription medications and supplements.

Influencers with 1,000 to 100K social media followers and who enjoy a near-celebrity status within a given niche – be it weight loss, keto, or vegetarianism – are called micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers carry the most weight under the WEGO Health umbrella, as they’re considered not only cost-effective but also incredibly persuasive in the eyes of the target audience. Therefore, they make for ideal partners for Big Pharma to work with and use their social media influencer marketing dollars best.

Unfortunately, experts caution that pharmaceutical firms paying micro-influencers to promote their prescription medications off the back of genuine reviews could be grossly misleading to their unsuspecting social media followers.

Report: Relationship between Patient Influencers and Big Pharma Raises Ethical Questions

New research by Erin Willis and her team at the University of Colorado Boulder found that most micro-influencers who offer advice on prescription drugs to their followers have close ties with Big Pharma. A total of 26 patient influencers, the majority of whom have been diagnosed with conditions like HIV, celiac disease, asthma, chronic migraines, Parkinson’s disease, and lupus, were interviewed for the study.

Interviewees were predominantly micro-influencers with an average social media followership of 1,000 to 40,000. Patient influencers in this category are generally more inexpensive for pharmaceutical companies to partner with than celebrities with millions of followers. But their persuasion could have a far-reaching influence on how their followers make health and healthcare decisions.

With trust in Big Pharma dwindling in recent years, drugmakers are paying more and more patient influencers to cash in on their unique persuasion power. However, Erin Willis and other experts think this close relationship could do more harm than good, especially to patient outcomes. For example, the recent influx of videos on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok has catapulted weight-loss jabs like Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Ozempic into the social media limelight, encouraging some users to use them without a provider’s prescription.

Some Patient Influencers have the Best of Intentions

The good news is that Erin’s team found that patient influencers never intended to mislead their followers; instead, they wished to be objective and serve as a credible source of healthcare advice for other patients.

More specifically, the study discovered that more than two-thirds (69%) of the interviewed influencers had partnered in the past with a drug maker in some way — be it to communicate with a target audience, serve on an advisory board, or talk to researchers and doctors. In all these respects, investigators discovered patient influencers seemed to have the best intentions in conveying accurate information and creating awareness about their conditions.

Despite Good Intentions, Some Patient Influencers Mislead Their Followers

Although the patient influencers had good intentions to spread awareness and information about their condition, some still misled their followers. About 15% of the surveyed influencers said they share product launches and news releases from Big Pharma with their audience if they deem the information relevant. More crucially, 12% claimed to cite credible clinical studies when explaining information to the followers.

Only 5% of the cohort indicated that they would never consider sharing information about medical devices and medications, thinking that would be unethical. However, the biggest chunk of the patient influencers was not too bothered to bag money from Big Pharma. It’s disconcerting to experts that social media users with no clinical background or training broadly share information about prescription drugs.

The Reach and Regulation of Influencer Marketing

Big data experts forecast that influencer marketing will grow steadily to close the year with an industry valuation of roughly $21,1 bn. The FTC requires patient influencers and advocates to disclose any payment for sponsored and paid hashtags. In practice, influencers can meet FTC’s mandate by tagging their posts with the hashtag #sponsored or #ad.

The FDA has also established rigorous regulations, rules, and standards that influencers must heed when posting social media posts and videos promoting prescription medications and sharing medical advice. Unfortunately, as noted by the researchers, digital literacy and health literacy in the US are so alarmingly low that it is challenging for patients to differentiate between genuine peer-to-peer advice and sponsored ads.

The Problem with Direct-to-Consumer Drug Marketing

Patient influencers are one piece of the puzzle that’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug marketing, which is interestingly allowed only in New Zealand and the US. Instead of marketing prescription medications through healthcare providers, DTC advertising gives Big Pharma the leeway to target consumers directly.

This type of medication marketing has been controversial yet popular since it was first green-lighted in 1985. Nonetheless, advertising prescription drugs using patient influencers on social media is particularly disconcerting to experts who claim influencer posts don’t have all the essential information that patients need to be aware of.

Ozempic and Wegovy Controversy

The recent craze and shortage of the diabetes drug Ozempic and its counterpart Wegovy highlight the potential impact of patient influencing, which was amplified by celebrity endorsements. Off-label use of Wegovy and Ozempic was so widespread in 2022 – largely thanks to influencer hype on social media – that the FDA had to warn about the dubious uptick in demand for the diabetes drugs. The situation created dire shortages that left some people with diabetes in limbo with their health management.

Wrap-Up

Big Pharma is not the only one tapping into the social media market. Done, a premier health startup has in the recent past been faulted for using social media ads that exaggerate the benefits of its drug portfolio and therefore sabotage genuine diagnoses. They crossed the line, especially when promoting their ADHD treatment plans, underscoring the blurry line between click-baiting and advertising in drug marketing.