by Cassidy Morrison at Daily Mail
- At least 68 percent of top-selling drugs in 2020 are listed as ‘low-added benefit’
- Low-benefit drugmakers spent an average 14.3 percentage points more on ads
- Direct to consumer advertising climbed from $1.3 bn in 1996 to $6 bn in 2020
Pharmaceutical giants funneled huge sums of money into advertising for prescription drugs deemed to have the lowest added benefit.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that amount of spending on promoting prescription drugs reached $131 million in 2020.
Ninety-two of 135 drugs considered, or 68 percent, were scored to have little added benefit.
Their findings reflect lingering ethical questions regarding direct-to-consumer advertising, which influences both the patients and the doctors who are able to prescribe the drugs and reap the financial benefits.
The results reveal the extent to which drug companies push their products on digital and print ads, building on another recent study from Harvard University that found less than a third of 73 most advertised medications had ‘high therapeutic value’…
Continue Reading