Tobacco sponsors may support snooker abroad: archive, 11 November 1986

Cigarette firms may be considering sponsoring snooker tournaments abroad to get round the BBC’s new advertising curbs, it emerged yesterday. They could pull out of Britain because the restrictions would cut the air time given to their brand colours, sources said.

The BBC is tied by the advertising rules of the countries in which events are filmed. This weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, for example, will be screened complete with advertisements for Marlborough and John Player cigarettes on sponsored cars.

Tobacco firms may switch sponsored snooker tournaments to countries with little or no advertising restrictions. Brazil is considered a tempting venue.

The BBC has told snooker’s governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), that the sponsor’s brand colours must not be reproduced in the playing area; signs bearing the sponsor’s name must not be cited behind players’ seats and health warnings must be legible – if they are not the BBC retains its right to put a warning caption on the screen.

Mr Bill Cotton, BBC’s managing director, has said he is concerned that air time is being used to sell cigarettes. This follows a Health Education Council complaint that sports sponsorship was giving the tobacco industry the equivalent of 500 30-second TV advertisements a year.

The curbs will come into force at the £275,000 Rothman’s Grand Prix snooker tournament later this month. The firm had just spent £2,000 on building a set in its brand colour, Rothman’s blue, when it was told of the new curbs.

Rothman’s three-year sponsorship agreement with the WPBSA runs out next month, and renewal is in question. ‘We won’t be taking any decision until we sit down in November and judge from market research the effectiveness of sponsorship,’ said Mr Roach.

Tobacco sponsors may support snooker abroad: archive, 11 November 1986

Increase-IT Trial Scheduled For Presentation In November

Final results of the eagerly-awaited and hugely controversial IMPROVE-IT trial are last but not least going to be revealed. The American Heart Association has announced that the  trial will be presented by Chris Cannon on November 17 at 11:51 AM (central time) in Chicago at the group’s annual scientific sessions . IMPROVE-IT compared the impact on cardiovascular outcomes of the statin simvastatin with Vytorin (the mixture of simvastatin and ezetimibe, manufactured by Merck) in more than 18,000 individuals with acute coronary syndromes.

Both Vytorin and Improve-IT have been the topic of significant controversy. The drug was approved, and widely employed, regardless of the absence of clinical trials demonstrating  benefit. The Improve-IT trial, which was developed to assess the result of clinical outcomes, has taken several years to attain completion. Some observers  have pointed out that the trial’s length has closely paralleled the patent daily life of the drug.

But Boost-IT might have critical implications beyond our knowing of ezetimibe. It is extensively believed that the trial will provide a substantial contribution to the debate about the reliability of surrogate endpoints in general and the independent relevance of lowering LDL cholesterol in distinct. I have argued in the past that the fate of the new PCSK9 inhibitors may possibly depend on the outcomes of Improve-IT:

If Boost-IT meets its primary endpoint then the FDA will be far much more inclined to accept LDL-lowering as a surrogate endpoint and the PCSK9 inhibitors may possibly well achieve early approval (if all else goes properly, of program, however this is by no means assured). On the other hand, if Boost-IT does not meet its principal endpoint then the FDA will be significantly significantly less most likely to approve a new class of cholesterol-reducing medicines with out evidence of substantial clinical positive aspects.

Increase-IT Trial Scheduled For Presentation In November