The news: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME) have introduced a bill, The End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act, that would prohibit D2C prescription drug advertising on television, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media.

How we got here: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been outspoken about wanting to ban pharma ads on TV. Kennedy thinks pharma ad rules are too lax, and have caused an overreliance on prescription medications in the US. He also believes media companies don’t fairly cover the drug industry since they heavily rely on its ad dollars. Sanders and King express different concerns in their bill—namely, that pharma companies profit from misleading drug ads that overstate a medication’s benefits while minimizing its risks.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been answering Kennedy’s call. Several recent bills aim to rein in pharma companies’ ability to advertise directly to consumers.

• Senators in Connecticut and Oklahoma introduced similar bills this year, though with slight variations, to prohibit D2C prescription drug ads.
• At the federal level, a reintroduced bill from Sen. King in February would ban D2C advertising of a new drug in the first three years post-FDA approval.
• The bipartisan Drug-price Transparency for Consumers Act was reintroduced in January, proposing to mandate price disclosures on prescription drug ads. President Trump unsuccessfully tried to enact a similar regulation in his first term.

What’s different this time: Prior attempts to outlaw drug advertising typically focused on the channel where most pharma D2C ad dollars go—linear TV.

• Pharma spent $5.15 billion on national TV ads in 2024, according to iSpot tracking data. The sector’s total outlay on D2C advertising is about $14 billion annually, per a recent CSRxP study.

The End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act also calls out advertising on digital channels and social media. That’s significant because pharma marketers likely figured they could shift their budgets to digital even if a ban on linear TV materialized.