It’s not every day that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Independent Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King would agree on, well, anything. But when it comes to the multi-billion-dollar market for pharmaceutical commercials on TV, all three believe it is ripe for a crackdown.
Kennedy Jr., who initially vowed to ban direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads on his first day in office, is looking at policies that would require commercials to provide more disclosures of drug side effects or prohibit pharma’s ability to write-off ad expenses on their taxes, per Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Sanders and King’s End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act would ban ads across TV, radio, print, digital and social media.
If implemented, such policies would leave the declining linear TV business feeling ill effects as a critical source of revenue could dry up at a time when billions of ad dollars are already shifting towards streaming, digital and social channels. The pharmaceutical ad market contributed $10.8 billion in 2024, or 4% of total U.S. ad spend, with 59% going to TV, according to MediaRadar. The firm estimates the industry was the third largest TV ad vertical, spending $6.4 billion that year.
Though experts believe an outright ban is unlikely and would face legal challenges, they warned TheWrap that restrictions such as additional disclosures in commercials would put pressure on advertisers and news networks with older skewing audiences, as longer, pricier ads would tighten the supply of available inventory in the market.
“Pharmaceutical companies don’t have the luxury of being able to use shorter messages because they have to put out more disclaimers,” one media buying executive requesting anonymity said. “So either brands are going to lean in and say I have to spend 30% or 50% more to get the longer messages, or you’re just going to have the same number of ads, but it will reduce the reach and frequency.”
Prescription drug makers may alternatively look to shift spend away from linear and into digital channels or, in the event of an outright ban, other forms of marketing, leaving networks scrambling to fill those gaps elsewhere.
“Networks are creative and there are things that they can do, but it would be a major challenge,” the executive added. “Any drop in demand is going to challenge the marketplace.”
Representatives for Paramount, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Fox and AbbVie declined to comment for this story. Spokesmen for King, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb did not return TheWrap’s request for comment.
The case for and against a crackdown
The U.S. and New Zealand are the only countries left that allow for direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads. Efforts to restrict them in the U.S. has been a decades-long fight and lighting rod for controversy, with little movement on the issue.
Proponents of a ban are concerned the ads are “one of many contributors to an over-medicated country and society,” driving up demand and artificially inflating prices for drugs that people don’t need, Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, told TheWrap.
A 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found one in four Americans surveyed cannot afford the costs of the medicine their doctors prescribe. And, in 2023, Johns Hopkins researchers found pharma companies spent around 14% more on DTC advertising for drugs that had demonstrated lower added benefit, with each 1.5% increase in spend associated with a 10% increase in sales.
When looking at just linear TV, prescription drugmakers spent an estimated $5.12 billion on national TV ads in 2024 and $2.97 billion in the first half of 2025, per iSpot.tv.
AbbVie, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb spent the most on linear TV advertising in 2024 and the first half of 2025, per iSpot, with Wegovy, Rinvoq, Skyrizi, Tremfya, Dupixent and Rexulti seeing the most dollars spent on promotion.
ABC, CBS , NBC, Fox and ESPN were the biggest beneficiaries in both 2024 and the first half of 2025, with market shares of 17.2%, 15.8%, 14.9%, 5.3% and 2.5% in the latter timeframe, respectively.
The NFL, “Good Morning America,” “World News Tonight With David Muir,” “NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt,” “Today” and “CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnell” benefited the most from pharmaceutical ad spend in 2024 and the first half of 2025.
Critics of a ban argue the ads are an important way to educate consumers about a drug’s benefits, risks and use cases. It’s also not entirely clear if limits or bans on DTC prescription drug ads would be successful in lowering prices, given consumer demand is just one of many variables that affect pricing.
After analyzing various policy scenarios, the Congressional Budget Office found eliminating or limiting DTC prescription drug ads for three years after a drug’s initial approval or sale would only result in a 0.1% to 1% decrease in average prices.
“While it may be politically popular in this day and age to take on direct-to-consumer advertising, I don’t think we’re likely to see it have a large impact on how products are priced,” Alexander said. “The shock to the system will be tempered, because DTC advertising is dwarfed by advertising to prescribers.”
An uphill battle
Despite a bipartisan push, efforts to ban drug ads have been unsuccessful, as courts have sided with pharmaceutical companies that their commercials are protected speech under the First Amendment.
“Not much has changed since courts rejected similar attempts,” said Dave Morgan, CEO of cross-channel TV advertising firm Simulmedia. “Many courts believe that more information is good for consumers and don’t like to prevent it outside of nebulous claims of harm. There’s not much real harm proven at this point from directly informing consumers of drugs and what they can do for them.”
The Trump administration’s efforts to increase transparency around drug costs have also faced similar pushback. A federal judge previously blocked President Donald Trump from implementing a rule in his first term that would have required commercials to disclose if a medicine’s list price was more than $35 a month, ruling only Congress had the authority to do so.
Under Food and Drug Administration guidelines, which were loosened in 1997, drug ads are not required to disclose cost or alternatives with fewer risks and the agency cannot limit ad spending. Drugmakers also don’t need FDA approval prior to running ads nor can the agency bar advertising any kind of prescription drugs, even if they cause severe injury, addiction or withdrawal effects.
In May, FDA commissioner Marty Makary said the agency has no plans to outright ban DTC prescription drug ads, but would take a “hard look” to ensure the information presented is a “complete picture.” Similarly, FCC chairman Brendan Carr cited former president Richard Nixon’s ban on cigarette advertising in the 1970s as precedent for a ban on drug ads, but acknowledged Congress or HHS would need to take action first in order to enforce it.
During Senate testimony in May, Kennedy Jr. said he’s had conversations with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about tax changes and expected to make an announcement “within the next few weeks.”
An HHS spokesperson told TheWrap it’s exploring ways to “restore more rigorous oversight and improve the quality of information presented to American consumers who deserve nothing less than radical transparency,” adding that drug ads must “prioritize accuracy, patient safety and the public interest – not profit margins.” But they emphasized no final decisions on policy have been made.
Meanwhile, Sanders and King’s legislation has been referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and would need to pass through the House, the Senate and be signed by the president before becoming law.
When asked if he’d spoken to media companies about the legislation, a spokesperson for Sanders told TheWrap he’s more concerned about Americans being deceived by “billions of dollars of misleading pharmaceutical ads” than the revenue streams of “corporately-owned television networks.”
So far, drugmakers and media giants are shrugging off concerns about a potential ban.
Fox Chief Financial Officer Steve Tomsic said drug ads account for a “low single-digit percentage” of the company’s overall revenue and that it would take an “enormously draconian ban” to have an impact. Meanwhile, AbbVie Chief Commercial Officer Jeff Stewart said the company is prepared to pivot to forms of communication outside DTC and areas like disease awareness campaigns to help “stimulate education of the consumer.”
While everyone awaits more clarity on potential policy, a second media buying executive told TheWrap they’re hopeful the discussions may spur new ad innovations rather than bans or restrictions. They noted that using a QR code in ads, for example, is a “far faster and simpler” solution to help consumers find information about side effects.
But Merith Basey, executive director of consumer advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, argued American patients are “footing the bill for Pharma’s greed” and that reform, such as ending taxpayer subsidies for drugmakers’ advertising, is “common sense.”
“Pharma doesn’t need a handout, patients need affordable prescription drugs,” she said.
