The news: Pharma advertisers spent more than $10 billion on prescription drug ads last year, with the top 10 drug brands accounting for $3.3 billion last year, per Fierce Pharma’s report based on MediaRadar data.

Parsing the data: MediaRadar’s $10.1 billion total includes digital, paid social, print, radio, out-of-home and TV advertising. About half of the total spending can be attributed to TV advertising, per iSpot’s 2024 calculation of $5.15 billion in prescription drug TV spending. 

• AbbVie was the biggest ad spender among the Big Pharmas, dropping more than half a billion each on a pair of anti-inflammatory drugs Skyrizi ($647 million) and Rinvoq ($553 million), plus another $173 million on its antipsychotic medicine Vraylar.
• Novo Nordisk followed Abbvie, spending $353 million on obesity drug Wegovy and $178 million on type 2 diabetes treatment Ozempic.

Zooming out: Pharmaceutical ad spending is expected to increase by 5.8% in 2025, according to Dentsu’s annual forecast. It’s a key TV advertiser and accounted for 11.6% of all national TV spending last year, per iSpot.