Pharma's latest headache: HHS requirement to include drug price in TV ads will mislead consumers and violates first amendment

Sheldon Bradshaw, partner at law firm King & Spalding, provides an Expert View on the impact of a new US proposal to require that drugmakers list prices in direct-to-consumer advertising.

Drug companies, which have learned to live with advertisements calling out a litany of possible side effects for their drugs, may want to take a couple of aspirin. That’s because the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a new proposed rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that would require them to disclose the list price — more precisely, the wholesale acquisition cost — of medications they sell in direct-to-consumer television ads.