FAS accused Bayer of unfair advertising of vitamins for pregnant women

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has accused pharmaceutical giant Bayer and the TV channel TNT of unfair advertising for Elevit Prenatal vitamins for pregnant women. According to the FAS commission's decision, the advertisement created the impression that a healthy pregnant woman needs to take this drug.

"The wording used in the advertisement contains a suggestion that a future child of a pregnant woman or a woman planning a pregnancy may have congenital developmental defects, and also contributes to creating an impression in a healthy woman about the necessity of its use," explained the antimonopoly service.

The FAS now intends to initiate an administrative offense case against Bayer's Russian representative office, JSC Bayer, and fine the advertiser company. The TNT channel was ordered to stop broadcasting the commercial.

Bayer disagrees with the FAS decision and plans to appeal it in court, according to the company's response to a Vademecum inquiry. The TNT press service did not provide a comment to Vademecum.

"Approximately one in 33 newborns has congenital developmental defects," states the commercial. To support this thesis, the pharmaceutical manufacturer provides a reference to the study "Folic Acid Supplementation During Pregnancy and Its Impact on Disease Status and Development" by S. Barua, S. Kuisona, and M.A. Junaid, published in the Journal of Biomedical Science in 2014. However, the article only discusses the effect of folic acid on the condition of a pregnant woman, while the drug Elevit Prenatal contains other components.

In the next part of the commercial, the announcer states: "Elevit Prenatal reduces the risk of fetal neural tube defects by 92%. Start taking Elevit as soon as you decide to get pregnant." The advertisement concludes with the slogan: "Elevit Prenatal. So that the baby is born healthy."

Following a viewer complaint to TNT, the FAS checked the commercial and found that it violates paragraphs 5 and 6, part 1, article 24 of the Federal Law "On Advertising," which state that advertisements for medicinal products must not "contain statements or suggestions that consumers of the advertisement have certain diseases or health disorders" and "contribute to creating an impression in a healthy person about the necessity of using the advertised object."

Elevit Prenatal is registered as a medicinal product. It is used for the prevention and treatment of vitamin deficiency, deficiency of minerals and trace elements at the stage of pregnancy planning, during pregnancy, after childbirth, and during breastfeeding.

This is not the first time the FAS has found Bayer in violation of the advertising law. In February 2015, the Moscow OFAS initiated a case against the company. The company placed a magazine advertisement for a blood glucose meter, the Contour TS, containing a claim that the device's measurement accuracy is 97.9%, which favorably distinguishes it from other similar products. However, another company, a manufacturer of glucose meters, presented data to the OFAS showing that the measurement accuracy of its devices exceeds the indicators of the Contour TS meter.

Bayer AG is a German company founded in 1863. The company's headquarters is located in Leverkusen, Germany. The Bayer Group includes about 307 representative companies in 77 countries worldwide. The number of Bayer employees exceeds 116.8 thousand people worldwide. The company's revenue in 2015 was 46.3 billion euros.