Drug companies spend as much or more on marketing than they do on research. In the first quarter of 2012 direct to consumer advertising approached 1 billion dollars.
The costs of marketing to doctors, and this is admittedly old data, is reflected in this graph.
Today one would expect at least a 100% increment paralleling the increase in health care costs over the same period of time.
Aggressive marketing has been shown to effect doctor’s decisions and increase patient expenditures, and overall costs. Guess who pays?
Medicynical Note: Read the links for more details.
Medicynic 