Spending on the advertising of brand-name prescription drugs on television — which not long ago was a fast-growing marketing venue for the pharmaceutical industry in the United States — has dropped more than 20 percent in the last five years.
According to new figures from Nielsen, spending on television advertising fell 23 percent to $2.4 billion from the beginning of 2007 to the end of last year. Spending in 2011 dropped 2 percent from 2010, and last year was the fourth consecutive year that such spending fell. Drug companies in the United States spent more than $3.1 billion on advertising pharmaceuticals on television in 2007, Nielsen said.
The decline is in sharp contrast to the decade-long drug-industry advertising spree that began in 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration loosened its regulations and allowed direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs on TV.
Analysts say spending on brand-name drug ads on television could deteriorate further because of generic competition to some top-selling drugs that have been widely advertised, like Pfizer’s Lipitor for cholesterol.
From 2011 to the end of 2015, more than $100 billion of brand-name drug sales will be exposed to generic competition, IMS Health said.
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