Big Pharma and Advertising

By Bryan Silver

*The following is an excerpt from an article “The Medicating of America,” published in Living Safer Magazine and The Legal Examiner.

So when did this all start? You need to go back a few decades, but there was a time when pharmaceutical companies did no direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs. Most people in the business felt the medications (and the warnings that the FDA required to be present in all advertisements) were too complicated for the average person to understand. For many years, pharmaceutical companies advertised directly to doctors, the linch pins in the prescription process: patients came to doctors with a problem, doctors relied on their education and knowledge for a diagnosis, treatment was based on any number of medications they had learned about via the available literature, and the patient ultimately followed the doctor’s directions and took whatever drug might have been prescribed. Again, it was a process that worked, and many felt it was the correct process—it put control in the hands of a trained medical professional. The only problem was that some pharmaceutical manufacturers felt it was a slow process; new drugs sometimes took years to catch on with doctors who were set in their ways and slow to change, especially if they felt there was no reason to do so.

Previously, marketing drugs directly to consumers was viewed as problematic. Up until the 1980s, the FDA required that all drug ads include the name of the drug, it’s purpose and detailed information on side effects. This alone had most shying away from broadcast media because a scrolling screen of potential problems did not seem appealing.

Then in 1986, the makers of a prescription allergy medication called Seldane, which was one of the first to claim non-drowsy status, hit upon a possible workaround; they discovered that if they didn’t communicate the name of the product, they didn’t have to include all the other information. The solution was an ongoing television campaign that showed allergy sufferers in allergic environments with the single ending message of, “Your doctor now has a treatment which won’t make you drowsy. See your doctor.” In an instant, the tables were turned and now patients were suggesting treatments to their doctors. The significance is that Seldane, a product grossing about $34 million a year, suddenly surpassed $100 million. And $300 million. And $400 million a year in sales. In an NPR interview, Joe Davis—the ad agency exec behind the campaign, described the reaction, “…We were flabbergasted. And eventually it went to $800 million.” While the numbers might pale in comparison to what some drugs pull in today, it’s important to keep the timeframe in mind. An increase of over 2300 percent was big money, and this was the beginning of big pharma marketing directly to consumers.

Now in 2017, drug companies spend 5.6 billion a year on drug advertisements aimed at consumers. Fueling this growth is the fact that the FDA “relaxed” the rules of pharmaceutical advertising in 1997—requiring only the drug’s name, main use and only the most significant potential side effects. Even so, the lists can dominate the better part of a 60-second spot—yet most consumers seem unaffected by the unappealing problems, as demonstrated by rising ad spending and revenue year after year.