Association Between Drug Characteristics and Manufacturer Spending on Direct-to-Consumer Advertising.

Importance: Some drugs are heavily marketed through direct-to-consumer advertising.

Objective: To identify drug characteristics associated with a greater share of promotional spending on advertising directly to consumers.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Exploratory cross-sectional analysis of drug characteristics and promotional spending for the 150 top-selling branded prescription drugs in the US in 2020 as identified from IQVIA National Sales Perspectives data.