Adweek reported President Donald J. Trump signed a memorandum that may lead to debilitating adverse effects for practitioners of pharmaceutical advertising.
Trump already declared, “You know, we’ve cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300 and 1,400, 1,500%.”
Looks like he’s gonna make producing drug promotions at least 1,500% more difficult too.
Pharmaceutical Ads Face Closer Scrutiny Following Trump’s Memorandum
The president is taking aim at direct-to-consumer marketing
By Mark Mwachiro
The media advertising business could be impacted by President Donald Trump’s memorandum aimed at cracking down on pharmaceutical advertising.
Using existing regulations for enforcement, the Trump administration will reach out to pharmaceutical companies via cease-and-desist and/or warning letters, alerting them to follow current regulations pertaining to drug advertising, specifically direct-to-consumer advertising, which they believe have been flouted over the years.
The memorandum, signed Tuesday, places Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary as the leads on this issue.
Kennedy had earlier proposed banning pharmaceutical advertising, but the memorandum falls short of doing that.
The duo is tasked with ensuring transparency and accuracy in drug advertising, including by increasing the amount of information related to any product risks.
Digital and social media drug advertising will also be scrutinized as the administration looks at whether pharmaceutical products are advertised with the proper disclosures and whether these platforms are abiding by the current rules.
And the role of social media influencers will be looked at when it comes to their transparency and disclosures when promoting or endorsing a drug product.
According to CNN, current regulations require drug ads to not create a “misleading impression” and to provide a “fair balance” of information.
A senior official in the Trump administration told CNN enforcement by the FDA in the past few years has not been stringent enough, with only one enforcement letter sent in 2023 and none issued in the past year.
For instance, during this year’s Super Bowl, a Hims & Hers ad promoting weight loss drugs aired during the game without including information on safety and side effects. This raised the eyebrows of politicians and others, who highlighted it as a prime example of pharmaceutical companies ignoring or circumventing the current regulations.
In addition, the Trump administration intends to do away with a 1997 provision allowing ads from pharmaceutical companies to include only a brief excerpt of a drug’s side effects, while directing consumers to a more comprehensive rundown published elsewhere.
This loophole enabled an increase in advertising spend as pharmaceutical companies could create shorter spots that were welcomed by TV networks.
“The Trump/FDA crackdown could make current D2C drug ads unworkable,” eMarketer healthcare analyst Raj Leventhal said. “The administration wants to revert to pre-1997 D2C drug advertising laws. This would require drugmakers to disclose all product side effects and risks in-ad. Drug ads on TV are typically less than one minute long, meaning that this rule, if enforced, would effectively nullify every pharma commercial in its current form.”
Pharmaceutical ad spend has grown from $12.2 billion in 2015 to an estimated $39 billion in 2025, with the most significant gains occurring during the pandemic, according to marketing intelligence firm WARC.
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