Print“The CBO says because a moratorium would affect relatively few drugs, its effects would be small.”
The Congressional Budget Office examined the consequences of proposals to place a moratorium on consumer advertising of newly approved drugs during their first two years and concluded such a measure would have little effect.
In an economic and budget issue brief, the CBO reported that pharmaceutical manufacturers use direct-to-consumer advertising to promote only a small group of drugs, but spend heavily to do so. Only 73 of 366 drugs marketed during their first two years between 1999 and 2008 were directly marketed to consumers.
For those 73 drugs, companies spent an average of $71 million per drug on direct-to-consumer advertising during the two years that would be covered by a moratorium. That compares to an average of $54 million to promote the rest of the 366 drugs over the two-year period to physicians through journal advertisements, meetings and events, and so-called detailing, the practice of sending out representatives to discuss the value of a particular drug.
The CBO says because a moratorium would affect relatively few drugs, its effects would be small.
Advocates of such a ban worry that direct-to-consumer advertising could cause consumers and payers to boost spending on drugs without that spending delivering a concomitant increase in value. They also suggest that such advertising may lead people to use a drug before the potential adverse events that could result from its use are well understood since that may not be known until it has been in wide use for some time.
On the flip side, the CBO notes that advertising does provide potential benefits to public health because some people who could benefit from a new drug may not be aware of its availability in the absence of advertising.
The CBO said should a moratorium on direct-to-consumer advertising during the first two years of a drug’s marketing occur, it would likely cause companies to expand their marketing to physicians for these drugs. Prices on prescription drugs would likely be affected by changes in demand, but since CBO expects a moratorium to have little effect on demand, it said it would likely have little effect on prices.
June 03, 2011
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-cbo_says_advertising_moratorium_on_new_drugs_will_have_little_effect.html
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