Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11230

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Timmerman L.
Drug makers triple spending on marketing as regulation softens
Bloomberg News 2007 Aug 17
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/16/bloomberg/bxadvert.php?page=1

Full text:

SAN FRANCISCO: Drug makers tripled their spending on U.S. marketing in the past decade to $30 billion a year as government action against misleading advertisements declined, a study has found.

The spending was driven by print and TV ads to consumers, free samples and promotions to physicians, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine released Thursday. U.S. regulators sent 21 warning letters to drug makers in 2006 for misrepresenting the risks and benefits of their products, down from 142 letters nine years earlier, the researchers said.

The findings suggest drug companies have been undaunted by criticism since 2004, when Merck’s widely promoted Vioxx pain reliever was withdrawn from the market after safety risks came to light. Last month, a “Viva Viagra” ad campaign from Pfizer, set to an Elvis tune, was criticized by AIDS activists for promoting the impotence pill as a “party drug.”

“It’s important that these ads be regulated, and the regulations be enforced,” said Julie Donohue, a health policy researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, and the study’s lead author, in a telephone interview. “It’s the FDA’s responsibility to make sure the information in the ads is good.”

The study was sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Many of the top-advertised products are for chronic conditions. London-based AstraZeneca’s Nexium for heartburn was the most promoted drug in 2005, supported by $224 million in advertising, according to the study. It was followed by the sleep aid Lunesta, marketed by Sepracor, based in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Vytorin, a cholesterol-lowering drug, ranked third in ad spending, the researchers said.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group in Washington, said in a statement that direct-to-consumer advertising “improves patient understanding of disease and available treatments.”

“The New England Journal study underplays the valuable role that DTC has in educating and empowering patients to take initiative in their own health care,” said Diane Bieri, general counsel for the pharmaceutical group.

Researchers found that the advertising typically begins early in the life of a product. Of the top 20 advertised drugs, 17 had ad campaigns from their first year on the market.

A report last year from the Institute of Medicine proposed a moratorium on direct-to-consumer TV ads during a product’s first two years following approval, when more data on the drug’s long-term safety can be gathered. The institute, established in 1970, advises the government on health issues.

Proposals to give the FDA authority to ban advertising for a new drug did not win inclusion in drug-safety measures that have been passed by the House and Senate. A final version of the legislation awaits negotiations when Congress returns to session in September.

The drug industry group proposed self-regulation in 2005, asking its members to withhold ads for new drugs long enough to educate doctors about benefits and risks. The guidelines did not specify how long companies should wait.

Drug makers support some government oversight of advertising, including a proposal to allow the FDA to hire 27 more employees to review TV commercials for accuracy before they go on the air, Bieri said.

The FDA had three employees reviewing such ads in 2002 and four in 2004, according to the study. During that period, spending on direct-to-consumer ads shot up 45 percent to $4.2 billion, from $2.9 billion, researchers said.

Most of the total spending on marketing is for product samples and other promotions the drug makers provide to doctors for what they call educational purposes.

Advertising appears effective for drug makers, previous research has shown.

“What comes out of the research that we’ve done is the importance of advertising and how that’s impacting the way that consumers are viewing medication and self-medication in particular,” said Glen Murphy, managing director of AC Nielsen in China.

For every 10 percent increase in advertising for a given medicine, prescription sales of drugs across the same class rise 1 percent, according to a 2003 study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, California. In 2002, every extra dollar drug companies spent on ads pushed up revenue by $4.20, the Kaiser research found.

“Direct-to-consumer advertising increases sales of drugs, and studies have shown a lot of it is misleading,” said Lisa Bero, a pharmacologist who has researched drug marketing at the University of California, San Francisco. “I think it means we’ll be getting more and more misleading information.”’

GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second-largest largest drug maker, spent the most on direct-to-consumer advertising in 2006, $848 million, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus data. Pfizer, the biggest drug maker, was second, spending $641 million.