Trump Announces Crackdown On Drug Ads On TV, Potentially Disrupting Billions In Ad Spending

Earlier this week, following both the kangaroo court that was RFK Jr. congressional hearing and the news that the Trump admin may crack down on Tylenol (of all things), we wondered if there really wasn’t something more serious for MAHA to be focusing on… like making an actual impact and banning pharma ads on TV. After all, it’s just the US and New Zealand that still allow pharma ads to fund what are largely extremely liberal cable TV stations: why not help US health at the grass roots level by pulling back on the US addiction with, well, drug addiction. And if the Trump admin can put much of the liberal mainstream media out of business for selling snake oil – in some cases literally – even better.

Whatever happened to banning pharma ads on TV? https://t.co/QCdOOSefBV

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 5, 2025

And while we didn’t expect our lament to generate any traction, we were very surprised to learn that late on Tuesday, the Trump admin announced a crackdown on pharmaceutical advertising on television and social media platforms, potentially disrupting billions of dollars in annual ad spending.

President Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Tuesday that calls on federal health agencies to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose more side effects in their ads and enforce existing rules about misleading ads. The administration is pitching the moves as a way to increase transparency for patients, and while it is not an outright ban as many had hoped for, it is a start, and it will certainly had an adverse effect as drug makers scramble to avoid penalties and sanctions. 

President @realDonaldTrump signs the most significant action in a generation to rein in misleading pharmaceutical ads 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Ds5tcIvMH8

— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) September 9, 2025

As noted above, the US is the only place, besides New Zealand, where pharma companies can directly advertise to consumers. Limiting pharmaceutical advertisements has been a longtime priority for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., though the new regulations would stop short of banning the ads entirely.

But, as Bloomberg notes, even adding stricter requirements to the ads will likely hit both pharmaceutical companies and the media companies that rely extensively on those advertising dollars. 

Drug companies spent $10.8 billion in 2024 on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in total, according to a report from the advertising data firm MediaRadar. AbbVie, Glaxo and Pfizer were particularly big spenders. AbbVie alone spent $2 billion on direct-to-consumer drug ads last year, primarily on advertising for the company’s anti-inflammatory drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq. The medicines brought in more than $6.5 billion for AbbVie in the second quarter of 2025.

Aside from new regulations, the agencies also plan to more strictly enforce existing rules around misleading advertising. 

“The FDA is sending approximately 100 enforcement action letters today and thousands of letters warning the industry, including online pharmacies, who have increasingly been promoting drugs with no mention of side effects at all,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in a video posted on social media Tuesday. 

A senior administration official confirmed that the new Trump administration regulations may require broadcast ads to be longer to ensure they disclose the full risk profile of medications. Another official clarified that the goal is not to reduce the number of ads, but ensure patients have full information about side effects.

“They’re going to have to report all their side effects,” Kennedy said in an interview with Fox News Tuesday evening. “In some cases that might create an advertisement that’s four minutes long.”

Before the loosening of advertising regulations by the FDA in 1997, US pharma companies had to list all possible side effects for a medication if they wanted to mention which condition the drug being advertised was intended to treat. Reading out the long lists drove up costs for air time, making the ads less practical. 

That FDA change in 1997 allowed ads to disclose fewer side effects and also allowed companies to direct customers to talk to their doctors, call a telephone number or visit a website to get more information on the advertised drugs. Realizing that the new regulations meant a much higher return on investment, TV pharma ad spending surged, and so did chronic diseases, autism, and mental disorders. Last year, 59% of the pharmaceutical industry’s expenditures were on TV advertising, making pharma the third-highest spending industry, according to MediaRadar.

Administration officials said they’d also be taking a closer look at advertisements from telehealth companies, which operate differently from traditional pharma companies. They declined to mention specific companies, but noted a Super Bowl advertisement from a telehealth company that received criticism from senators.

The Trump administration is also planning to ensure drug ads made by influencers and other social media posts abide by the same standards applied to TV, an administration official said.

Research firm Emarketer projected that the pharmaceutical industry would spend more than $19 billion on online marketing in 2024. The spending was driven largely by ads for weight-loss and diabetes medications, which makes sense: the US is the world’s most obese nation by a very fat margin.