Return to Main Menu

Effect of Direct-to-Consumer drug ads have unexpected results TV advertising of prescription drugs may be prompting more people to visit their doctors rather than substantially increasing sales of advertised drugs, according to research led by the Medical University of South Carolina.   Initial results of an ongoing project at MUSC that looks at Direct to Consumer Advertising (DTC) for Cox-2 inhibitor drugs will be published in the September/October issue of the journal Health Affairs. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University also are participating in the study.   Because the use of DTC by pharmaceutical companies continues to accelerate, researchers wondered what the advertising was actually influencing. The team reported on two drugs, Merck’s Vioxx and Pfizer’s Celebrex, in a study that sought to determine whether pharmaceutical companies can influence physician and patient decisions about adopting pharmaceutical therapy.   “It’s not been established whether DTC has a larger effect on stimulating prescribing by physicians or on encouraging patients to go visit their physician’s more frequently,” said David W. Bradford, Ph.D., Director of MUSC’s Center for Health Economic and Policy Studies, and lead author of the study. “We found that for both Vioxx and Celebrex, DTC tended to increase visits by patients with osteoarthritis to their physicians,” Bradford said. “Once the patients got to the doctor office, advertising was not the biggest factor affecting prescribing. In fact, we tended to find class level effects.”   For example, Bradford said that Vioxx advertising led to small increases in the prescribing for both Vioxx and Celebrex.   “One conclusion we found is that DTC may not be the universally pernicious practice that people are worried it is,” Bradford said. “It does get patients to their doctors and once there, we see mixed results in prescribing.” Bradford said this suggests that doctors and patients are making informed decisions.   The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began allowing pharmaceutical companies to include the names of drugs in advertising in 1997. Since then, some consumer groups complained about the commercialism of drug therapies. However, Bradford said that the study does not point to concerns that the advertising is driving sales as much as feared. Therefore Bradford said that more studies are needed, and he is urging FTC not to impose any further advertising restrictions on DTC advertising.   “One important thing to note is that the FTC continues to hold hearings and conferences about this practice [of DTC advertising] and is contemplating restricting DTC. This paper and other papers that have been published by this team of researchers in this study are not finding adverse consequences of DTC,” Bradford said. “We recommend that the FTC take a slow approach to further DTC restrictions because ongoing research is proving positive results with it.”     Friday, Sept. 15, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Papers at 849-1778, ext. 201.