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The U.S. government is looking for ways to restrict the pharma sector’s direct-to-consumer advertising to make it more difficult and costly for companies to run advertisements directly targeting patients, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
Given the legal risks of an outright ban on pharma ads, the White House is instead looking to discourage the practice through legal and financial means, the publication said, citing people familiar with the plans.
One of the policies under consideration is said to be a requirement to include more detailed disclosures of a drug’s side effects within an advertisement, a move that could result in lengthier ads that would be prohibitively expensive for companies to run.
Discussions are also underway to end the industry’s ability to consider direct-to-consumer advertising as a business expense under the U.S. tax code.
No final decision has yet been taken as discussions about proposed changes are ongoing, said the people who weren’t authorized to comment on the matter publicly.
According to a recent report from Fierce Pharma, AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) was the top TV drug ad spender for its immunology therapy Skyrizi. Treatments from Sanofi (SNY)/Regeneron (REGN), Novo Nordisk (NVO), Otsuka Pharma (OTCPK:OTSKY) (OTCPK:OTSKF), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), and AstraZeneca (AZN) also made it into the top 10 list.
Relevant advertising companies: WPP (WPP), Interpublic Group (IPG), Omnicom (OMC), Publicis Groupe (OTCQX:PUBGY)