Are You Fooled by the Prescription Drug Ads on TV?

influence drug ads

My kids get a kick out of how agitated I get when I see pharmaceutical ads on TV. What a scam!

Today’s Worst Prescription Drug Ads

As a family physician, I know firsthand how many people come into a doctor’s office asking for the “latest and greatest” drug they saw on television, a drug they probably don’t need and that would likely cost them a small fortune.

You may remember my rant about the weight-loss drug Contrave. Of course, the ad gets extra play every January, hoping to profit from your New Year resolutions.

Then there was Ibrance. It’s a drug used to slow the progression, not cure, breast cancer for postmenopausal women with metastatic disease that is hormone receptor positive (HR+) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-). That’s not a drug for the mass market. That is a pretty gosh darned specific medication that will cost you nearly $12,000 per month according to drugs.com.

Not that Big Pharma stops at drugs. They are pushing medical devices now too. Look at the commercial for Impella. It is a percutaneously inserted ventricular assist device (LVAD), i.e., a heart pump, used for people with severe heart disease and heart failure who do not also have heart valve problems who are not candidates for bypass surgery. This too is a very tailored category.

Big Pharma is not afraid to push the big guns. Take the most expensive medications and devices and plug them for an audience, any audience, whether it’s appropriate or not. Do not make people aware of more affordable alternatives and do whatever it takes to pressure physicians to increase the costs of healthcare.

Big Pharma Spending on Advertising

Prescription drugs are a massive market, HUGE. Americans spent $539 billion on prescription drugs in 2020. How much did Big Pharma spend? They spent $6.58 billion that year on advertising, $4.58 billion of it on TV drug ads, and only $91.1 billion on research and development (R&D).

According to a 2020 JAMA study, drug development for a single drug ranges from $314 million to $2.8 billion. For all the advertising they do, a pharmaceutical company could develop a new medication that could really help people. Instead they focus on the profit.

According to a report in Fierce Medicine, here are the 10 biggest Big Pharma spenders by specific drug in 2020:

Ranking Company Drug Spending in 2020
 1 Abbvie Humira $499M
 2 Sanofi and Regeneron Dupixent $409M
 3 Pfizer Xeljanz $232M
 4 Abbvie Skyrizi $202M
 5 Novo Nordisk Ozempic $196M
 6 Eli Lilly Trulicity $176M
 7 Abbvie Rinvoq $175M
 8 Pfizer and Bristol Myer Squibb Eliquis $170M
 9 Bristol Myer Squibb  Opdivo $164M
 10 Amgen  Otezla $150M

Just for the sticker shock, know that Abbvie spent $341 on Humira advertising in 2017. In three short years, they invested $150 million more per year to convince you to buy their product. That year the #10 product spent $50 million less than the #10 product in 2020. Big Pharma budgets are going up.

Why Drug Advertising Is Bad for America

Big Pharma claims they have a right to free speech and that television drug ads fall into that domain. They will also say that these ads do a public service by introducing people to different medical conditions and even de-stigmatizing them. After all, their ads encourage people to seek medical advice from health professionals.

Don’t be fooled. These ads do more harm than good.

For one, these ads emphasize brand name over generic medications, an average increase in cost by as much as 30 to 80 percent. Many people misunderstand and pressure their doctors to prescribe the branded products over cheaper alternatives.

Drug ads also promote overutilization of medication. In a quick fix world, people expect miracle medicines that don’t always deliver what they promise. Big Pharma preys on that hope. Do you really need to be on all that medication?

As for de-stigmatizing disease, drug ads can do exactly the opposite. For example, having wrinkles is a natural part of aging, not a disease, but you see ads for cosmetic products all the time.

While I agree there is a place for the Ibrances and Impellas of the world, TV isn’t one of them. Healthcare providers need to be versed in the data behind these products. They should educate their patients and give them options according to their medical need, not shove them blindly down one pathway. We have to start having meaningful discussions and stop giving Big Pharma all the control.

 

References

Bulik B.S. AbbVie, Pfizer drive 2017 pharma TV ad spending above 2016’s tally. (2018). Fierce Pharma. https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/pharma-tv-ad-spending-tops-2016-tally-abbvie-and-pfizer-brands-lead

Bulik B.S. The top 10 ad spenders in Big Pharma for 2020. (2021). Fierce Pharma. https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/top-10-ad-spenders-big-pharma-for-2020

Research and development expenditure of total U.S. pharmaceutical industry from 1995 to 2020*(in billion U.S. dollars). (2021). Statistica.

Total nominal spending on medicines in the U.S. from 2002 to 2020*(in billion U.S. dollars). (2021). Statistica.

Wouters, O. J., McKee, M., & Luyten, J. (2020). Estimated research and development investment needed to bring a new medicine to market, 2009-2018JAMA323(9), 844. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.1166

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