KFF Health News warns consumers not to take TV drug ads at face value:
“A 2023 study found that, among top-selling drugs, those with the lowest levels of added benefit tended to spend more on advertising to patients than doctors. ‘I worry that direct-to-consumer advertising can be used to drive demand for marginally effective drugs or for drugs with more affordable or more cost-effective alternatives,’ the study’s author, Michael DiStefano, a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Colorado, said in an email.
“Indeed, more than 50% of what Medicare spent on drugs from 2016 through 2018 was for drugs that were advertised. Half of the 10 drugs that the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration targeted for drug price negotiation this year are among the drugs with the largest direct-to-consumer ad spend.”
Pharmacy advertising has become a windfall for TV channels, with drugmakers spending over a billion dollars per month nationally. In 2023, three of the top five spenders on TV commercials were pharmaceutical companies.
Even more astonishing, direct-to-consumer advertising is just a drop in the bucket compared to 24 billion-plus dollars that drugmakers spend on marketing to providers annually… and that amount positively pales against the $200 billion they spend on rebates every year.