October 17, 2005

Onslaught of sleeping pill ads paying off?

All of those TV ads for Lunesta, Ambien and other sleeping pills --- and all that drug industry-sponsored promotion of the "National Sleep Awareness Week" may be paying off.

A new report by a prescription management company shows that among adults aged 20 to 44, use of sleep medications doubled between 2000 and 2004, while spending among the age group for sleeping pills jumped 190 percent.

But among children aged 10 to 19, use of sleep aids shot up 85 percent and spending was up 223 percent.

The report estimated that Americans filled more than 35 million prescriptions for sleeping pills in 2004, spending $2.1 billion.

Posted by schwitz at October 17, 2005 06:03 PM | TrackBack
Comments

It is hard to decide how I feel about drug companies advertising. In this case is the increase based on consumer need being met by creating awareness of a solution or advertising creating a need such as the old Alka-Seltzer comercials and their Monday morning bloz.

Posted by: Rusty Ford at October 23, 2005 10:08 AM
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