Insomnia and Antidepressant Sales Give Lie to DTC Myths

(MoneyWatch)  Direct-to-consumer drug advertising has almost no relationship with consumer demand for prescriptions. That is one interpretation of a story in Ad Age showing that scrips for insomnia pills (such as Sanofi-Aventis's Ambien CR) and antidepressants (such as Eli Lilly's Cymbalta) are up, even though advertising in both those categories is on the decline.

The drug business has always known that the link between advertising and prescriptions is a murky one. A consumer may see an ad but has to get through a doctor, a pharmacist and a reimburser before they get the pill. Still, companies have advertised on the assumption that educating patients about their diseases will drive them to the doctor, and that on aggregate pill sales will increase as a result.

In other words, there has been a basic faith in the notion that advertising and prescriptions sales are correlated.

But the numbers in Ad Age's story say something embarassing about the drug industry's advertising efforts:

According to IMS Health, prescriptions for major sleeping-pill brands rose 7% last year, while antidepressant-brand prescriptions jumped 15%

At the same time, advertising for sleep aids has declined by hundreds of millions of dollars; and for antidepressants spend is flat or down. Here's a summary:

• Company, Brand, adspend 2008, adspend 2007
• Sanofi, Ambien CR, 150 million, 190 million
• Sepracor, Lunesta, 107 million, 271 million
• Takeda, Rozerem, 40 million, 140 million
• Eli Lilly, Cymbalta, 179 million, 179 million
• Wyeth, Effexor, 9.8 million, 21.2 million
• Source: TNS Media Intelligence, via Ad Age

This is all good news for drug companies, of course. Their sales are going up and they're spending less money to make those sales. (BNET noted recently how both Sanofi and Sepracor's sales operations had become more efficient. Ambien dollar sales have declined because of generic competition even though scrips are up; Lunesta is holding flat against that same competition.)

But it's bad news for individual brand managers sitting on DTC budgets in the seven- and eight-figure range. As Ad Age points out, insomnia and antidepressants are probably taking off because of the angst caused by the recession. This strongly suggests that patient demand is most sharply triggered by need and by drug efficacy, not by pretty pictures flickering in a flourescent tube.

• See BNET's previous coverage of Sanofi and Sepracor:
• Sanofi Q4: No Nasty Surprises, But Viehbacher Is Focused on Sales Productivity Ratios
• Sepracor Announces 940 Layoffs; Achieves the Impossible on Lunesta Sales