Prevent Disease.com - Report Links Consumer Drug Ads to Jump in Spending



		Report Links Consumer Drug Ads to Jump in Spending Excerpt By Doug Macron, Reuters Health NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A handful of prescription drugs that were widely advertised directly to consumers accounted for almost half the overall increase in pharmaceutical spending between 1999 and 2000, according to a study released by the National Institute for Health Care Management Research and Education (NIHCM) Foundation on Wednesday. An NIHCM report released earlier this year found that retail prescription drug spending in the US jumped to about $131.9 billion in 2000, from $111.1 billion the year before. The NIHCM's newest findings indicate that sales of the 50 drugs most heavily advertised to consumers accounted for 48% of this total increase. The roughly 9,850 other prescription medicines sold in the US were responsible for the remaining 52%. These 50 drugs--which include AstraZeneca's ulcer drug Prilosec (omeprazole), Pfizer's cholesterol fighter Lipitor (atorvastatin) and GlaxoSmithKline's antidepressant Paxil (paroxetine)--also pulled in $41.3 billion in 2000, roughly 31% of the total Americans spent on all prescription drugs that year. The study also found that drugmakers spent $2.5 billion on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, primarily in the form of television commercials, last year. This marks a 35% rise from 1999 and more than 100% jump since 1997 when the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed restrictions on prescription drug advertising. Leading the pack of companies investing in DTC ads, according to the NIHCM report, is Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck for its arthritis drug Vioxx (rofecoxib). According to the report, Merck spent $160.8 million on promoting the drug in the mass media. Vioxx generated sales of $1.5 billion in 2000, up 360% over the year before. On the other hand, Pfizer and Pharmacia, which co-market Vioxx's biggest competitor Celebrex, spent $78.3 million on DTC ads for their drug, which pulled in $2.6 billion last year, a 78% increase over 1999. ``DTC ads are still a relatively small component of all prescription drug promotion,'' NIHCM President Nancy Chockley said. ``But they are clearly becoming an important influence.'' While concerns exist over the impact DTC advertising may have on some patients receiving inappropriate prescriptions, Steven Findlay, director of research for NIHCM, told Reuters Health that ``if a doctor absolutely knows that one drug is contraindicated for a patient, he or she is not going to prescribe it. You want to believe that physicians are not going to accede to a patient if they think it's not the right drug for them.'' ``But, all things being equal, when a patient says I think I'd like to try that particular drug, doctors will drift in that direction, if not just outright capitulate,'' he said. ``And there's nothing really wrong with that interplay...but DTC advertising does have a more than subtle effect of steering millions of patients to ask for X drug rather than another one,'' Findlay added. The drug industry's lead trade organization The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), however, flatly denies that there is a direct relationship between DTC advertising and sales changes for prescription drugs. A spokeswoman for PhRMA told Reuters Health that the reason why drugmakers engage in the practice is to ``empower patients to learn about newer treatment options.'' ``DTC advertising is just one more vehicle to do that,'' she said. Reference Source 89 For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".