Dose Of Reality: Breaking Down Big Pharma’s Year of Bad Behavior in 2025: Part II: Big Pharma’s DTC Advertising
Big Pharma’s Aggressive Marketing Directly Targeting Consumers to Boost Sales of High-Priced Blockbusters Comes Under Scrutiny
With each new year comes a time-honored tradition for Big Pharma: Hiking prices on hundreds of brand name prescription drugs in the first weeks of January.
As 2025 winds down, we can look back at a year of increased scrutiny around Big Pharma’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising — and its role in increasing costs for American patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health care system in order to boost sales of high-priced blockbuster drugs, even when they may not deliver the best clinical value for patients.
In the first installment of our year-end series, we reviewed Big Pharma’s egregious pricing practices in 2025, including continuing to hike prices faster than the rate of inflation and bringing new drugs to market with skyrocketing launch prices.
Get a Dose of Reality on Big Pharma’s DTC advertising in 2025:
BIG PHARMA SPENT MASSIVE SUMS ON DTC ADVERTISING IN RECENT YEARS
Pharmaceutical Company Spending on Advertising Grows from $12 Billion in 2015 to $39 Billion in 2025
According to a March report from AdWeek, the pharmaceutical industry’s “ad spend has grown from $12.2 billion in 2015 to an estimated $39 billion in 2025.” The report noted “[d]uring the same 10-year period, the pharmaceutical industry’s share of total U.S. ad spend expanded from 6.8 percent to a forecasted 9.8 percent.”
Big Pharma Spent $3.3 Billion Advertising Just 10 Brand Name Drugs in 2024
In June, Fierce Pharma released a report examining the brand name drugs with the biggest ad spend in 2024. For just these 10 brand name drugs, the pharmaceutical industry spent a whopping $3.3 billion on marketing and advertising in 2024.
BIG PHARMA’S BIG SPENDING ON MARKETING TARGETING CONSUMERS INCREASES DRUG COSTS
CSRxP Analysis Finds Big Pharma’s DTC Advertising Costs Taxpayers More than $1.5 Billion Every Year
In March, CSRxP conducted a study that found Big Pharma spent nearly $14 billion on DTC advertising in a single year, and that American taxpayers lose more than one billion each year in tax revenue as pharmaceutical companies write off these marketing expenses to further pad their bottom line. The analysis also cites pre-existing expert research confirming Big Pharma’s staggering spending on DTC advertising increases prescription drug spending in the U.S. The study includes pharmaceutical giants AbbVie, Amgen, Biogen, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Merck and Pfizer.
- The analysis found taxing or prohibiting DTC ads for the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. would result in increased federal tax revenue between $1.5 and $1.7 billion per year.
BIG PHARMA SIDESTEPPING DTC GUARDRAILS VIA NON-TRADITIONAL MEDIUMS
Brand Name Drug Companies Sidestep Guardrails Meant to Protect American Patients Through DTC Marketing Strategies
In November, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network published research analyzing the staggering expansion of Big Pharma’s DTC advertising across non-traditional mediums like social media, which are less subject to oversight and regulatory guardrails than traditional media like television and radio. The study found brand name drug makers are increasingly investing in influencer content and digital strategies that look like ordinary personal stories or health tips but function as marketing designed to further push high-priced, blockbuster products.
The researchers analyzed “740 high-engagement, regulator-relevant social media posts that had amassed more than 57.5 million views as of January 2025,” including a large number from “lifestyle/celebrity influencers.” They found, “efficacy claims were made in 511 posts (69.1%),” while “information on risks or adverse effects was mentioned in 247 (33.4%) of all 740 posts.” In addition, only 32.3 percent of “posts making efficacy claims… included any information on risks or adverse effects.”
The study highlights how this playbook allows Big Pharma to sidestep guardrails that apply to television or radio advertising set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These guardrails, designed to protect consumers from misleading claims and arm them with information to best make health care decisions with their doctor, are not being applied to Big Pharma’s algorithm-boosted digital strategies meant to increase sales of high-priced brand name drugs through social media. As a result, millions of Americans are being exposed to Big Pharma’s aggressive marketing tactics without guardrails on claims, disclosures about risks — or even, in some instances, the fact that it’s paid marketing at all.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CALLS OUT BIG PHARMA’S DTC ADVERTISING
FDA Commissioner: Big Pharma’s Billions of Dollars Spent on DTC Advertising “Would be Better Spent on Lowering Drug Prices"
In September, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary wrote an op-ed, published in The New York Times, detailing how Big Pharma’s staggering spending on advertising directly targeting consumers misleads American patients and increases prescription drug spending. Commissioner Makary also called for reforms and highlighted the bipartisan momentum to hold brand name drug companies accountable.
“As a physician, I’ve had patients walk into my office to ask about medicines they saw advertised. Rarely did the patient actually meet clinical criteria for the drug, but sometimes I would learn that they got it anyway from another source,” Makary wrote. “…The ads are also generally limited to expensive medications, not generic or biosimilar alternatives that are orders of magnitude less expensive. The United States leads the world in drug spending. A nonstop bombardment of ads encouraging medications over lifestyle changes is not a path to making America healthy again.”
“Whether driven by patient protection concerns or fiscal responsibility principles, lawmakers across the political spectrum recognize that America’s unique position as one of only two countries allowing widespread prescription drug advertising demands serious reform,” Makary said. “Over the last several years, drug companies have increasingly gamed the system. Those days are over. We are taking drug marketing claims seriously and making our regulatory standards transparent. We are restoring honesty and accountability in drug advertising to protect patients and rebuild public trust. The billions of dollars drug companies spend on advertising would be better spent on lowering drug prices for American consumers.”
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Calls for Reining in Big Pharma’s Staggering Spending on DTC Advertising
In May, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for reining in Big Pharma’s DTC advertising of prescription drugs during an interview on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on The Fox News Channel.
“I met with pharmaceutical companies yesterday and had a very frank discussion with them on ways to limit TV commercials,” Kennedy said. “When you advertise a pharmaceutical product, it’s the government that is the one most likely going to pay for that product… you get a tax deduction to put that ad on TV, so that federal taxpayers are paying for the ad, then they’re paying for the product.”
“We’re the only nation in the world that allows that kind of advertising on TV,” Kennedy continued. “We’re a complete outlier. There’s one other country like New Zealand that allows limited [DTC advertising] but nothing like we do.”
AMERICAN VOTERS SUPPORT INCREASED PRICE TRANSPARENCY AROUND BIG PHARMA’S DTC ADVERTISING
Fabrizio Ward Survey Finds American Voters Overwhelming Hold Big Pharma Companies Responsible for High Drug Prices
In February, CSRxP released the results of public opinion research, conducted by Fabrizio Ward, showing American voters overwhelmingly hold Big Pharma responsible for high prescription drug prices and support market-based solutions to lower prices by holding big drug companies accountable, including for gaming the U.S. patent system to block competition.
The survey also found that voters overwhelmingly support requiring drug companies to disclose the amount taxpayers paid to support the research and development of their drugs (88 percent) and requiring drug companies to list the price of their drugs in their direct-to-consumer advertising (86 percent).
“Results from the new national survey of voters…show broad and overwhelmingly bipartisan support for policy solutions to lower the cost of prescription drugs by addressing pricing and anti-competitive practices from drug companies,” Fabrizio and fellow pollster Bob Ward wrote in a memo on their findings. “The electorate, including equal numbers of Trump and Harris Voters, holds intensely unfavorable views of drug companies. By wide margins, voters are very concerned about the cost of Rx drugs, hold drug companies responsible and clearly identify drug company profits as the driver of high drug costs.”
As policymakers return to Washington in 2026, they should take note of the pharmaceutical industry’s continued egregious pricing practices and work to advance bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable.
Read our first blog in this series on Big Pharma’s egregious price hikes and increasing launch prices in 2025 HERE.
Learn more about market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable and lower prescription drug prices HERE.
And stay tuned as we continue to review Big Pharma’s bad behavior from this past year throughout the week.
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