Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Wednesday, November 11, 1998
Phil Galewitz, AP Business Writer
There's good reason. Just a year after the federal government relaxed restrictions on prescription drug advertising to consumers, television has become the medium of choice for the pharmaceutical industry.
The industry spent $306 million on TV ads during the first half of 1998, or $5 million more than it spent in all of 1997, according to figures released Wednesday by IS America.
Television now accounts for 48 percent of drug company's direct-to-consumer advertising, compared to 44 percent for magazines. The balance goes largely to newspapers.
Schering-Plough Corp. spent $29.2 million on TV advertising in the first six months of the year to sell its allergy drug Claritin, the most heavily advertised drug on the air. Two other allergy medications -- Pfizer's Zyrtec and Hoechst Marion Roussel's Allegra -- were also among the top five promoted drugs on TV, according to IMS.
Rounding out the top five TV sellers were Bristol-Myers Squibb's cholesterol drug Pravachol and Prilosec, the heartburn medication made by Astra Pharmaceuticals.
Overall, the pharmaceutical industry spent $631 million in consumer advertising in the first half of 1998, up 16 percent from a year ago.
Despite the increase in direct to consumer advertising, drug makers still spend the lion's share of their advertising budgets, or $2.5 billion last year, in marketing directly to doctors.
Drug companies will continue to fill the airwaves with ads because the ads work, analysts say.
In the next few months, Pfizer expects to start television advertising for its anti-impotence Viagra drug. And Dupont Pharmaceuticals is waiting for government clearance to puts its HIV drug Sustiva in TV ads.
The federal Food and Drug Administration in August 1997 relaxed the rules governing TV and radio drug commercials, prompting a flurry of ads in the typically more expensive mediums.
All the advertising is causing demand for drugs to soar.
Though national health care spending grew by 4.8 percent in 1997, the lowest rate since 1960, spending on pharmaceuticals increased 14.1 percent on top of a 13.2 percent the year before, the federal goverment reported Tuesday.
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