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Drugs advertising: increasingly costly

Advertising, as opposed to research, is eating up a growing proportion of pharmaceutical companies' budgets.

A huge share of pharmaceutical companies' budgets is devoted to advertising.

According to LEEM, the French pharmaceutical manufacturers' association, drug companies increased their R&D spending from approximately 3.7 billion to 4 billion euros between 2002 and 2004. But when set against the rise in the industry's overall turnover, this absolute increase of around 8% conceals a relative drop of approximately 13%.

Promotional spending rose from 2 to 2.6 billion euros between 2002 and 2003. This increase in absolute terms (+30%) also corresponds to a relative increase compared to the industry's turnover: +19%.

Clearly the inflated prices of new drugs enable firms to invest more and more in promotion. At a time of health spending cuts, pharmaceutical companies' promotional spending is something we should all be challenging.

©Prescrire January 2006

Source: "Le poids important de la promotion dans le budget des firmes pharmaceutiques" Rev Prescrire 2006 ; 26 (268) : 69.

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