These days it seems like there are as many drug commercials on television as beer commercials, and both provide almost no product information. Remember the commercial with the guy throwing the football through the swing? Erectile dysfunction. The older couple sitting in bathtubs on a scenic overlook? Also erectile dysfunction. Instead being up front about their product, these over-priced campaigns are intent on pushing medication on uneducated viewers.
The ads often tell you how some product, say Prilosec, will revolutionize you life - even if it is for repeated heartburn and your heartburn is infrequent. It makes taking drugs seem as simple as eating chicken soup. Then the commercials end with a high-speed and muted blurb about consulting your doctor and sometimes life-threatening side effects. Since drug companies have been allowed by the national Food and Drug Administration to air direct to customer (DTC) television commercials, Americans have been swindled even more by big business.
Prilosec, better known in TV ads as "the purple pill," is a good example. After the patent expired last year, a company came out with a generic version, underselling AstraZeneca PLC, the pharmaceutical company that makes Prilosec. AstraZeneca PLC responded with a new product, Prilosec OTC, an over-the-counter version of the drug that costs less than $1 a day. Prilosec, meanwhile, is still prescribed for more serious conditions like ulcers. Prescription Prilosec costs three times more than Prilosec OTC, yet contains the same dosage level as the nonprescription medication-normally the over-the-counter medication has a lower dosage. Procter & Gamble now holds a three-year monopoly of marketing exclusivity before generic alternatives can be sold without a prescription, giving the company a huge chunk of the $1.2 billion per year tens of millions of heartburn sufferers spend on over-the-counter remedies. Adding to the confusion is prescription-only Nexium, a slightly different version billed as "next-generation Prilosec" and advertised as "today's purple pill." AstraZeneca PLC makes both Nexium and Prilosec. Nexium and Prilosec are different versions of a drug called omprazole. AstraZeneca PLC is duping the American public into paying more for basically identical medication by simply employing colorful ad campaigns and effective direct-to-consumer marketing techniques. Researchers at AstraZeneca are currently hard at work "discovering" a new version of omprazole, with which they will overcharge the public as soon as the patent for Nexium runs out in 2014. I wonder if that will be called the "purple pill of the future."
Advocates of DTC drug advertising claim that if a drug is safe and effective, it does its manufacturer little good if the company cannot then target the consumers who actually buy. Advocates also claim that DTC drug advertising makes consumers aware that a treatment exists for a condition-for example, nicotine-containing nasal sprays and transdermal nicotine patches for cigarette addiction. It can also inform consumers that a particular health problem (e.g., a frequent urge to urinate) may have a source (e.g., prostate enlargement) requiring diagnosis by a physician.
Consumers do buy these medications, but doctors must prescribe them. The advantage of informing consumers that health problems have a source is an overstatement. Look at the vocabulary used: "health problem." Of course there is a source. Everybody knows that a cold does not appear out of thin air. There are thousands upon thousands of medical conditions in existence today, but advertisements mainly target conditions that will sell drugs, like erectile dysfunction. When people are ill, their natural inclination is to go to a doctor. Only stubbornness or financial hardship prevents people from seeking medical treatment, and a drug commercial does not solve either of these problems.
As the recent scandal with ephedrine and other "herbal" treatments with potentially life-endangering side effects revealed, drug companies aren't always worried about the health of their customer. Similarly, a little heartburn doesn't always mean you need prescription drugs. But you wouldn't know that from the commercials.
Owo is a business finance junior.
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