As drug­mak­ers spend $6B an­nu­al­ly on DTC ads, sen­a­tors re­vive bill to in­clude list prices in ads

A new GAO re­port on bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies’ $6 bil­lion an­nu­al spend­ing on di­rect-to-con­sumer ad­ver­tis­ing is push­ing US Sen­ate Ma­jor­i­ty Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Chuck Grass­ley (R-IA) to rein­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion that would re­quire price dis­clo­sures in the ads.

The GAO found that drug­mak­ers spent al­most half—$8.2 bil­lion of the $17.8 bil­lion from 2016 to 2018—on DTC ads for drugs in three ther­a­peu­tic cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing in­flam­ma­to­ry con­di­tions (e.g., arthri­tis, gout), en­docrine and meta­bol­ic dis­or­ders (e.g., type 2 di­a­betes, hy­pothy­roidism), and con­di­tions af­fect­ing the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem (e.g., de­pres­sion, mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis), ac­cord­ing to the new re­port.

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