I have type 2 diabetes but I manage it well
It’s a little pill with a big story to tell
I take once daily Jardiance at each day’s start
As time went on, it was easy to see
I’m lowering my A1c
Jardiance is really swell
The little pill with a big story to tell.

Millions of Americans have heard this jingle for Jardiance—an anti-diabetes medication—whose ads flood the airways. And millions of Americans are furious about those ads. 

The pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airways with ads for its products—especially at dinnertime.

Jardiance ad

Catch any of the “Big Three” national newscasts—on ABC, CBS and NBC—and you’ll see that the vast majority of their ads are funded by Big Pharma.

The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow pharmaceutical companies to directly advertise prescription drugs to consumers. 

In 1996, pharmaceutical companies spent $550 million on drug ads. That number increased more than 10-fold by 2020, reaching $6.58 billion annually.

In 2022, the three most-advertised drugs in the United States were:

Rinvoq (for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis)

Dupixent (curbs the immune system over-reaction that results in atopic dermatitis)

and Skyriz (used to treat adults with: moderate to severe plaque psoriasis).

And that advertising didn’t come cheaply. Rinvoq spent more than $315.8 million on TV ads in 2022. Dupixent spent $305.9 million and Skyrizi spent $174.4 million.   

In 2022, the industry spent just under $8.1 billion on ad campaigns, which includes all advertising areas, such as TV, print, social media and streaming channels.

Drug companies view the ads as an increasingly effective way to target viewers—especially older ones—who need more extensive medical care and treatment for potentially life-threatening conditions. 

No doubt the companies would love to be able to hand out their medications on street corners—the way pushers of heroin and meth now do. But that would put them directly in the crosshairs of federal and local law enforcement.

So the best these companies can do is try to convince patients to nag their doctors: “Oh, I want that drug.”  

Meanwhile, there are widespread concerns that:

• Drugs will be prescribed inappropriately by patients asking for drugs they have seen on TV;
• Patients will ask for or receive expensive brand-name medications, which are often featured in commercials, instead of less expensive generic ones; and
• Patients will show less interest in shedding unhealthy lifestyles and rely simply on drugs. 

The last one is especially important, given the cheerful atmosphere of so many of these ads. Take the one for Jardiance, for example.

The clearly obese woman in the ad is shown at her office. She isn’t working—because she’s too busy singing about having a life-threatening disease. Her co-workers are equally joyful as they join her in singing the praises of Jardiance.

It’s easy to imagine a parody of such commercials. If a cure is eventually found for Ebola, a similar ad could be based on Barry Manilow’s classic song, “Only in Chicago”: 

I got sick
And I sat on the bed
And puked out my guts.
And oh I swear
I remember how much I bled
And I thought I’d die.
With Ebola I knew I’d lose it all
It was real, it was Death.

This would be followed by a cheery ad for a pill that eliminates the symptoms of this usually fatal disease.

Ebola virus

The Harvard Gazette, in a March 1, 2023 article, warned that most advertised medicines don’t prove much better than other treatment options:

“We’ve all seen the commercials. People relaxed, smiling, and having fun with friends and family despite having a horrible or uncomfortable — or at least chronic — condition. Their new lease on life comes courtesy of a drug. Then the fine print. Roll the list of potential side effects, some of which seem worse than the malady itself.

“So why are the spots so popular with sponsors? Because they’re so effective — at least in terms of sales. In a recent issue of JAMA Network Open, Aaron Kesselheim and colleagues published the results of a study showing that some of the most heavily advertised drugs are largely no better at treating disease than other options.”

Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, bluntly gave the reason why pharmaceutical companies spend billions on drug advertising:

“Direct-to-consumer advertising is really intended for consumers. As a primary care physician, people certainly come into my office with advertisements that they’ve printed off the internet or that they remember seeing during the football game the previous Sunday and say, ‘What about this drug?’

“Studies show that when patients come in and ask their physicians about particular drugs, they’re more likely to get prescriptions for those drugs. Doctors of course also watch TV, but the pharmaceutical industry spends much more money advertising its drugs directly to physicians, through visits to their offices, sponsorship of continuing medical education, support of professional society meetings, consultancies, and the like.

“Actually, the amount of money that pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising to physicians is far higher than the amount spent on direct-to-consumer advertising because physicians are the ones writing the prescriptions.”