How Pharmaceutical Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Effects Prescription Drug Prices & Sales in Urban vs. Rural Markets

The pharmaceutical market is one of, if not the, most heavily regulated industries. This includes the promotion of pharmaceuticals, where even today only the United States and New Zealand allow broadcast direct-to-consumer advertising. The United States has only allowed it since the FDA changed promotion guidelines in 1995. Since then, direct-to-consumer advertising has had an impact on all facets of the pharmaceutical industry including sales, prices, patient adherence and physician decision-making. Most of the data on this topic is only up until 2005. This study seeks to update this data and takes a specific look at how direct-to-consumer advertising affects rural vs. urban markets. Prior studies have suggested that patients in rural markets respond differently to pharmaceutical advertising than patients in urban markets. Current data shows that rural consumers are spending more on prescription drugs than urban consumers and while the reason for this cannot be directly pointed to advertising, theory suggests that it could certainly be a factor in this divide.

制药行业堪称全球监管强度最高的产业之一，即便并非绝无仅有。其监管范畴亦涵盖药品推广领域：时至今日，仅有美国与新西兰两国允许开展面向消费者的直接药品广播广告（direct-to-consumer advertising）。美国自1995年美国食品药品监督管理局（Food and Drug Administration，FDA）修订推广指南后，才正式放开此类广告。自该政策落地以来，面向消费者的直接药品广告已对制药行业的多个维度产生影响，涉及销售额、药品定价、患者用药依从性以及医师诊疗决策等环节。目前该主题下的多数研究数据仅更新至2005年。本研究旨在更新此类数据，并专门探讨面向消费者的直接药品广告对城乡医药市场的差异化影响。既往研究表明，农村地区患者对药品广告的响应模式与城市患者存在显著差异。现有数据显示，农村消费者的处方药支出高于城市消费者，尽管目前尚无直接证据表明广告是该差距的成因，但相关理论推测，广告完全可能是促成这一差异的影响因素之一。