The news: The Trump administration is mulling new policies to make pharma advertising more difficult, per a Bloomberg report.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has called for a ban on pharma TV advertising, is instead eyeing two policies: 

• One would require drugmakers to disclose more side effects in D2C advertising.
• The other would eliminate pharma companies’ advertising tax deductions. 

Digging into the details: Although the reported plans are not a ban, they would make advertising more difficult and expensive. 

Additional side effect disclosures would likely result in longer TV ads and cost more in media time. For context: Typical prescription drug TV spots are currently 60 or 90 seconds.

Yes, and: Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are on board with more pharma ad regulations. 

• Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME) just introduced a bill to ban all D2C prescription drug ads on TV, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media.
• In April, a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed eliminating pharma company advertising tax deductions. It could generate more than $1.5 billion in tax revenues, per analysis by Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing.

Why it matters: Pharma spent more than $5 billion on TV advertising in 2024, per iSpot. Linear TV is especially important to the industry because its older skewing viewers are key target customers.