Facebook just held a breakfast to promote its 'clinical trials strategy' to drug marketers

Facebook's health team explained that users can't be targeted based on health conditions like insomnia. This is not limited to clinical trials. Marketers can target people by demographics and their expressed interests, or likes. Millions of health groups have organically popped up on Facebook for people with a wide variety of health conditions, though marketers can't use that data in their outreach. Some drug companies have been reluctant to use Facebook to date due to concerns that patients will share sensitive information like medical side effects and adverse events. Pharmaceutical companies are required to monitor and report these comments. This wasn't Facebook's first event for drug marketers. CNBC reported in May that the company was hosting a summit the following month to pitch its platform as an alternative to traditional television and print media ads.