Studies show pharmaceutical ads piquing patient interest

Spending on consumer advertising has soared, especially for the newest and most costly drugs.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Dec. 24/31, 2001.

Washington -- One in eight Americans has asked for and received a specific prescription from their physicians in response to seeing a drug ad on television, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Nearly one-third of the 1,872 adults queried by the foundation said they had talked to their physicians about a drug they saw advertised, and 44% of those reported receiving a prescription for the medication.

Participants viewed ads for three popular drugs on their own televisions and were then asked a series of questions, explained Mollyanne Brodie, PhD, vice president and director of public opinion and media research at Kaiser.

The ads were for the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor; Nexium for the relief of heartburn; and Singulair for asthma management.

It's difficult to escape seeing such ads, noted Diane Rowland, ScD, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, at a Nov. 29 news briefing on the survey. Ads ranging from birth control products to medications that promise relief from arthritis pain fill the airwaves.

In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration loosened restrictions for drug advertising on television, and the floodgates opened. The amount of all direct-to-consumer advertising totaled about $2.5 billion last year.

While DTC advertising attracts the most controversy, the provision of drug samples to physicians, at a cost of nearly $8 million last year, constitutes an even larger proportion of pharmaceutical company promotional spending, the foundation said. [...]