Big spending from AbbVie, Pfizer pushes pharma's 2018 ad spend to $6.5B

Pharmaceutical ad spending continued its upward climb last year. Spending topped $6.46 billion in 2018, according to Kantar Media, for an increase of 4.8% over the previous year.

Who’s laying out the most cash on ads? No surprises here: Perennial list-topper Humira, the anti-inflammatory treatment by AbbVie, again led the list of top five brands tracked by Kantar. Its media spending rose to $487 million, an increase of 13% over the previous year.