Pharma companies spent more than $342m on print advertising in professional health journals in the first six months of this year, according to new figures.
Kantar Media says its research shows a 1% rise in pharma’s print journal advertising and it names Johnson & Johnson – whose spending of almost $23m on advertising drugs products accounts for 7$ of the total advertising share – as the industry’s single biggest spender.
GlaxoSmithKline was the second highest spender investing $9m, less than half that spent by Johnson & Johnson, but up 110% for the company compared to the 2013 period.
Takeda, Pfizer and Novartis were the next highest spenders, each investing $7m in print advertising.
Kantar says the total number of advertising pages purchased in medical journals was down, year-on-year, by 2% to 53,094.
On a therapy basis, oncology brands lead the spending, accounting for $25m and making up 7% of the total market share, followed by oral diabetes drugs ($14m), up 52% from July 2013, and forming 4% of sales.
Meanwhile, in brand terms Invokana, the first-in-class type 2 diabetes drug from J&J’s Janssen unit was the most advertised drug product in the first six months of 2014.
J&J spent $12m to advertise the drug, which was approved in the US in April 2013, was up 84% on the same period in 2013, while Lundbeck’s antidepressant Brintellix was next in spending terms with $7m.
Behind those two came Bayer’s blood clot drug Xarelto and Forest’s anti-depression treatment Fetzima, each of which spent $5m on print journal advertising.