Banning pharma commercials would be a tough task, but just the attempt could encourage drugmakers to make changes
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stated desire to ban drug commercials from TV seems unlikely to become reality, according to advertising experts, but even pressure from Washington that falls short of an outright ban could lead to changes in the multibillion-dollar advertising sector.
Absent new rules or a ban, drugmakers could update their own voluntary guidelines on advertising to address government scrutiny, as they have in the past. Feeling the heat, they could also shift some of their budgets toward digital advertising or marketing directly to healthcare providers.
Kennedy pledged while running for president that he would issue an executive order kicking pharmaceutical commercials off television, arguing that Americans take too many prescription medicines and suggesting that the industry’s spending was influencing news coverage of the drug industry.
“We’re one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers,” Kennedy, now President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, said in a video he posted on X in May, referring to the U.S. and New Zealand. “Everybody agrees it’s a bad idea.”
When announcing Kennedy as his HHS pick, Trump said on X that drugmakers, along with big food companies, “have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation.”
If Kennedy is confirmed, he would gain oversight of the Food and Drug Administration, the agency that set off a boom in drug advertising when it relaxed its policies about direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in 1997.
Drug marketers on TV previously had to disclose seemingly endless possible side effects, or else avoid mentioning what a drug was supposed to do in the first place. Suddenly they were free to make health claims on TV while disclosing only the “most important” health risks of a drug.
Pharmaceutical advertising now makes up a major portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising in the U.S. each year.
Recent large spenders include Abbvie’s anti-inflammatory drug Skyrizi, which has spent nearly $400 million in linear TV ads last year in the U.S., and Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy, which has spent nearly $300 million, according to TV ad-tracking firm iSpot.tv.
Prescription drug brands accounted for 30.7% of ad minutes across evening news programs on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC last year through Dec. 15, according to data from iSpot.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group, declined to comment specifically about Kennedy’s proposed ban but pointed to its “guiding principles” for direct-to-consumer advertising.
The guidelines say direct consumer communications, and TV ads in particular, serve public health by increasing disease awareness, educating consumers about treatment options and motivating people to speak with doctors.
Drugmakers partly look to television to draw consumers in by providing a narrative around a treatment and the types of people it can help.
“You can tell that story of how the drug can have an impact on your illness or your lifestyle,” said Paul Hardart, a professor and director of the entertainment, media and technology program at New York University’s business school.
Industry observers are skeptical that the administration could successfully evict pharmaceutical advertising from TV. Such an effort would likely wind up challenged in court on First Amendment grounds, they said.
A federal judge during the first Trump administration also blocked a Health and Human Services Department rule requiring drugmakers to include prices in their TV commercials, saying it exceeded the agency’s statutory authority.
“It’s more likely that he successfully pushes some form of greater transparency in TV pharma ads,” said John Hosier, president of healthcare consulting firm John Hosier Healthcare Consulting, suggesting that Kennedy could revive previous administration pressure to provide clearer price and out-of-pocket cost information or require pharmaceutical companies to list generic drugs in the same therapeutic class, among other information. He said he still sees the previous Trump administration drug pricing transparency push as “dead on arrival,” but could see Kennedy push for a lesser form of that again.
Another outcome could be a requirement to clear ads with the FDA before they run, according to Hosier, although he acknowledged that could conflict with other messaging from the incoming administration about reducing oversight by the FDA.
Any regulatory changes are also likely to come slowly, Hosier added. “I can’t see a world where the logistical complexity of this and legal hurdles iron out quickly,” he said.
But drugmakers might also make changes in response to the pressure even without significant new rules. They updated their voluntary guidelines in 2008 following scrutiny in Congress and elsewhere, promising to stop promoting prescription medications for off-label uses, using actors to play physicians without saying so and having celebrity endorsers falsely say they use a drug.
If the new administration is successful in pushing pharmaceutical money out of television advertising, Hosier said those budgets could get shifted into marketing directly with healthcare professionals, running unbranded disease awareness campaigns, funding health advocacy groups and digital advertising.
Those changes would create new opportunities for the ad agencies that work specifically with drugmakers. Pharmaceutical advertisers might increasingly look to social media and influencer marketing, for example, or other avenues from digital display ads to direct mail.
“It could be a fascinating creative challenge,” NYU’s Hardart said.
Corrections & Amplifications
Abbvie’s anti-inflammatory drug Skyrizi spent nearly $400 million in linear TV ads last year in the U.S. And earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was this year. Also, prescription drug brands accounted for 30.7% of ad minutes across evening news programs on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC last year through Dec. 15. An earlier version incorrectly said it was this year. (Corrected on Jan. 2)