Welcome to the heart of promotional medical writing! If you are new to healthcare communications, the idea of a “promotional claim” can sound intimidating or mysterious. You might wonder: Is every sentence about a medicine considered a claim? What makes a statement promotional? And how do medical writers turn thousands of data points from clinical trials into concise messages that physicians and patients can rely upon?

At its core, a promotional claim is any statement communicating a product’s attribute, therapeutic benefit, clinical performance, or comparison. Depending on how it is written and where it appears, a claim may be explicit (stated directly in words) or implied (suggested through phrasing, comparisons, layout, or accompanying imagery).