With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slated to take the top spot at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President-elect Donald Trump, some in the biopharma industry are concerned about his tenure’s possible impacts on companies’ direct-to-consumer outreach.
RFK Jr. has previously expressed a desire to put a stop to DTC pharma ads in the U.S.—which is one of only two countries in the world, along with New Zealand, where prescription drugs can be directly advertised to consumers.
In just one example, while still in the presidential race earlier this year, he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “on my first day in office I will issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television.”
In a report Sunday, research firm Intron Health suggested that such a ban represents a major risk of RFK Jr.’s (still to-be-confirmed) HHS leadership for the biopharma industry.
“Whilst we have a relatively benign view of RFK’s impact on the Pharma industry, one thing that does worry us is the potential for the US government to ban DTC advertising of drugs,” Intron wrote, adding, “We see this as the biggest imminent threat from RFK and the new Trump administration.”
The analysts noted that because the return on investment for DTC drug ads is quite high—with “estimates ranging as high as 100%-500%, depending on the drug”—pharmas will “almost certainly” see their drug sales take a hit from a DTC ban, even as they save money on marketing spending.
Intron cited Fierce Pharma Marketing’s annual list of the top DTC ad spenders as examples of drugs that could be hardest hit by a potential ban, including AbbVie’s Skyrizi and Rinvoq, and Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent, among others.
Despite RFK Jr.’s vows, without widespread support and cooperation among the industry, a ban on DTC pharma ads would likely face quite a few obstacles, primarily in terms of the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Additionally, other analysts have suggested that, if confirmed as head of the HHS, RFK Jr. will likely focus more on national food and nutrition policy rather than targeting the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, where he’s criticized vaccine policies in addition to DTC practices—a habit that led to a dip in the stocks of vaccine makers following his appointment.
For the incoming administration’s potential impacts on pharma, those industry watchers say, the focus should instead be on Trump’s pick to lead the FDA. For that spot, the president-elect on Friday tapped Johns Hopkins surgeon and author Martin Makary, M.D., a vocal critic of COVID-19 public health policies and of the FDA’s Orphan Drug Act pathway for rare disease treatments.
Makary hasn’t yet shared his views on DTC pharma ads, though he did in 2013 contribute to a study analyzing certain marketing claims by healthcare providers, which ultimately concluded, “Further investigation of provider advertising, its effects on quality of care, and potential oversight mechanisms is needed.”