Julia Faria
Research lead covering advertising and marketing
Pharma and healthcare industry advertising in the U.S. - statistics & facts
The United States is the largest pharmaceutical market worldwide, accounting for almost half of global revenues in 2022. Nowhere else do consumers spend as much money on prescription drugs, over-the-counter medication, and other healthcare products and services as in the U.S.. While the ongoing increase in spending is mainly due to rising drug prices, it is also heavily influenced by the industry’s ever-expanding marketing efforts.
Pharma and healthcare marketing trends
Pharmaceutical companies dedicate billions of U.S. dollars to promoting medication and medical products every year. Whereas the marketing world took a significant hit with the onset of the pandemic, pharma and healthcare took center stage in 2020, leading to stable or even increased marketing spending across several avenues. In 2022, the industry was still riding the growth wave - the average marketing budget of U.S. healthcare companies amounted to 7.6 million U.S. dollars. Marketers focused their efforts on physicians; patients followed in second place. In-person sales representatives received the highest share of the total healthcare marketing budget, nearly 12 percent. Social media and professional meetings and conferences followed with a 10-percent share each.U.S. pharma ad spend remained stable after the pandemic
Pharma advertising spending in the U.S. amounted to an average of one billion dollars monthly by the end of 2022. That year, Dupixent took the lead as the top prescription drug ad spender. Sanofi and Regeneron invested over 490 million dollars in advertising the immunology medicament – most of it being allocated to TV ads, a popular format among pharma advertisers. Ozempic, from Novo Nordisk, also placed among the ten most advertised drugs in 2022. Originally used to treat diabetes, the medication has been making headlines as celebrities and influencers started praising its supposed advantages for weight loss – a use not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however. In the meantime, Novo Nordisk overall sales accelerated, while the company’s brand value reached an all-time high, at 3.1 billion dollars.
