The majority of direct-to-consumer spending was on advertisements for prescription drugs, which increased from $1.3 billion to $6 billion. (Photo: Shutterstock)
In many western countries, you don't see ads on TV for medicine or medical procedures. The governments of those countries take the position that the only advice on medication a patient should receive is from a medical professional.
The situation is obviously quite different in the U.S. A new study published in JAMA finds that spending on medical marketing rose from $17.7 billion in 1997 to $29.9 billion in 2016.
The biggest increase occurred in direct-to-consumer” advertising, which rose from $2.1 billion to $9.6 billion. Its share of overall medical marketing expenditures increased from roughly 12 percent to 32 percent.
Related: How does TV advertising affect health insurance enrollment?
The majority of DTC spending was on advertisements for prescription drugs, which increased from $1.3 billion to $6 billion. The study estimated that that spending funded 4.6 million advertisements, including 663,000 TV ads.
There has also been a big increase in advertising for health care providers, such as hospitals, clinics, dental practices or substance abuse treatment centers. Spending on marketing for such services has risen from $542 million to $2.9 billion.
In a distant third place in the DTC category are disease awareness campaigns funded by pharmaceutical companies. Drug-makers spent about $430 million in 2016 on campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of conditions treated by their medications. That is up from about $177 million in 1997.
The majority of medical marketing, however, is not directed at consumers but at health care professionals. Pharma spent $20.3 billion on such marketing in 2016, up from $15.6 billion in 1997. In inflation-adjusted dollars, that change actually represents a spending decrease.
Why has marketing to health care professionals stagnated? It likely has something to do with providers putting in place new rules restricting interactions between employees (notably doctors) and pharma representatives.
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