Direct-to-Consumer Drug Ads Have 'Modest' Effect

Bloomberg - New York

Direct-to-consumer advertising, which costs drugmakers more than $5 billion every year, has at best a 'modest' effect on sales and, in some cases, no effect at all, a study published in the British Medical Journal found.

Prescription patterns didn't change after the start of advertising campaigns for Amgen Inc.'s arthritis drug Enbrel or Schering-Plough Corp.'s allergy medicine Nasonex, researchers led by Stephen Soumerai at the Harvard Medical School in Boston found. Ads for Novartis AG's irritable bowel therapy Zelnorm were linked to a short-term boost in sales.

Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to advertise their products to patients in the U.S. and New Zealand. When the U.S. eased restrictions in 1997, the cost of consumer advertising for drugmakers jumped more than fourfold to about $5 billion in 2005, according to the study, which was the first controlled trial on the effectiveness of direct-to-consumer ads.

"People tend to think that if direct-to-consumer advertising wasn't effective, pharma wouldn't be doing it, Soumerai said in a statement. But as it turns out, decisions to market directly to consumers is based on scant data."