• Ad Age, Monday, October 2, 2006 12 PM

Not long after big pharma started direct-to-consumer ads, Ad Age remembers that then-FDA commissioner David Kessler had a warning for drugmakers: "Your companies likely will face lawsuits eventually about the claims they make for their products in television commercials," he said at the time. "One day in a courtroom, I assure you, one of you is going to have your DTC ads played." His words, spoken in 1998, turned out to be prescient. DTC drug advertising has grown to a $4.1 billion ad category spanning some 70 drugs and, as predicted, it's also become a lightning rod for political and public criticism. "In some ways, DTC got away from us," says Kessler today, from his post as dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »