We’ve all seen the ads. Happy families, vacations, active lifestyles or flash mobs paired with a prescription drug name, upbeat music and a rapid list of possible side effects.

Those ads aren’t cheap. And increasingly, researchers and consumer advocates are asking what pharmaceutical advertising means for the cost of our healthcare.

The advocacy group Public City recently petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, arguing the ads are designed primarily to persuade consumers rather than educate them.

There is a lot of money behind that persuasion.

Drug companies spent about $8 billion advertising prescription medications directly to consumers in 2024, up from approximately $1.3 billion in 1998. Research cited in the petition also connects increased advertising with increased prescription drug spending.

That marketing can also influence what happens in the doctor’s office. Patients exposed to drug advertising are more likely to ask for specific medications, and research shows those requests can affect what physicians ultimately prescribe.

Perhaps most importantly, the drugs receiving the biggest advertising push aren’t necessarily those providing the greatest clinical benefit. One study cited in the petition found that more than 70% of television advertising spending among the 73 most-advertised drugs went toward medications with low therapeutic value.

That begs the question for patients and policymakers concerned about healthcare affordability: How much of what we pay for prescription drugs is supporting better care, and how much is supporting the marketing needed to sell them?

The FDA is already cracking down on misleading drug advertisements. Now Public Citizen is asking it to go further and ban direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising altogether.

Whatever the FDA decides, the petition puts another piece of America’s high healthcare costs under scrutiny by exposing how billions of dollars are spent creating demand for prescription drugs in the first place.

What do you think of pharmaceutical drug ads? We want to hear from you.

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