I 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3789 
To amend title XI of the Social Security Act to require that direct-to- 
consumer advertisements for prescription drugs and biological products 
include an appropriate disclosure of pricing information. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 5, 2025 
Mr. TAYLOR (for himself and Ms. SCHAKOWSKY) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in 
addition to the Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be subse-
quently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To amend title XI of the Social Security Act to require 
that direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription 
drugs and biological products include an appropriate dis-
closure of pricing information. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Drug-price Trans-
parency for Consumers Act of 2025’’ or the ‘‘DTC Act 
of 2025’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF THE SENATE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescrip-
tion pharmaceuticals is legally permitted in only 2 
developed countries, the United States and New 
Zealand. 
(2) In 2018, pharmaceutical ad spending ex-
ceeded $6,046,000,000, a 4.8-percent increase over 
2017, resulting in the average American seeing 9 
drug advertisements per day. 
(3) The most commonly advertised medication 
in the United States in 2020 had a list price of more 
than $6,000 for a one-month supply. 
(4) A 2021 Government Accountability Office 
report found that two-thirds of all direct-to-con-
sumer drug advertising between 2016 and 2018 was 
concentrated among 39 brand-name drugs or 
biologicals, about half of which were recently ap-
proved by the Food and Drug Administration. 
(5) According to a 2011 Congressional Budget 
Office report, pharmaceutical manufacturers adver-
tise their products directly to consumers in an at-
tempt to boost demand for their products and there-
by raise the price that consumers are willing to pay, 
increase the quantity of drugs sold, or achieve some 
combination of the two. 
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(6) Studies, including a 2012 systematic review 
published in the Annual Review of Public Health, a 
2005 randomized trial published in the Journal of 
the American Medical Association, and a 2004 sur-
vey published in Health Affairs, show that patients 
are more likely to ask their doctor for a specific 
medication, and the doctor is more likely to write a 
prescription for it, if a patient has seen an advertise-
ment for such medication, even if such medication is 
not the most clinically appropriate for the patient or 
if a lower cost generic medication may be available. 
(7) According to a 2011 Congressional Budget 
Office report, the average number of prescriptions 
written for newly approved brand-name drugs with 
direct-to-consumer advertising was 9 times greater 
than the average number of prescriptions written for 
newly approved brand-name drugs without direct-to- 
consumer advertising. 
(8) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Serv-
ices is the single largest drug payer in the United 
States. Between 2016 and 2018, 58 percent of the 
$560,000,000,000 in Medicare drug spending was 
for advertised drugs, and in 2018 alone, the 20 most 
advertised drugs on television cost Medicare and 
Medicaid a combined $34,000,000,000. 
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(9) A 2021 Government Accountability Office 
report found that direct-to-consumer advertising 
may have contributed to increases in Medicare bene-
ficiary use and spending among certain drugs. 
(10) The American Medical Association has 
passed resolutions supporting the requirement for 
price transparency in any direct-to-consumer adver-
tising, stating that such advertisements on their own 
‘‘inflate demand for new and more expensive drugs, 
even when these drugs may not be appropriate’’. 
(11) A 2019 study published in the Journal of 
the American Medical Association found that health 
care consumers dramatically underestimate their 
out-of-pocket costs for certain expensive medications, 
but once they learn the wholesale acquisition cost (in 
this section referred to as the ‘‘WAC’’) of the prod-
uct, they are far better able to approximate their 
out-of-pocket costs. 
(12) Approximately half of Americans have 
high-deductible health plans, under which they often 
pay the list price of a drug until their insurance de-
ductible is met. All of the top Medicare prescription 
drug plans use coinsurance rather than fixed-dollar 
copayments for medications on nonpreferred drug 
tiers, exposing beneficiaries to WAC prices. 
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(13) Section 119 of division CC of the Consoli-
dated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Public Law 116– 
260) requires the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services to increase the use of real-time benefit tools 
to lower beneficiary costs. However, there still re-
mains a lack of available pricing tools, so patients 
may not learn of their medication’s cost until after 
being given a prescription for the medication. A 
2013 study published in The Oncologist found that 
one-quarter of all cancer patients chose not to fill a 
prescription due to cost. 
(14) The Federal Government already exercises 
its authority to oversee certain aspects of direct-to- 
consumer drug advertising, including required disclo-
sures of information related to side effects, contra-
indications, and effectiveness. 
(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-
gress that— 
(1) a lack of transparency in pricing for phar-
maceuticals has led to a lack of competition for such 
pharmaceuticals, as evidenced by a finding by the 
Department of Health and Human Services that 
‘‘Consumers of pharmaceuticals are currently miss-
ing information that consumers of other products 
can more readily access, namely the list price of the 
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product, which acts as a point of comparison when 
judging the reasonableness of prices offered for po-
tential substitute products’’ (84 Fed. Reg. 20735); 
(2) in an age where price information is ubiq-
uitous, the prices of pharmaceuticals remain shroud-
ed in secrecy and limited to those who subscribe to 
expensive drug price reporting services, which typi-
cally include pharmaceutical manufacturers or other 
health care industry entities and not the general 
public; 
(3) greater insight and transparency into drug 
prices will help consumers know if they can afford 
to complete a course of therapy before deciding to 
initiate that course of therapy; 
(4) price shopping is the mark of rational eco-
nomic behavior, and markets operate more efficiently 
when consumers have relevant information about a 
product, including its price, before making an in-
formed decision about whether to buy that product; 
(5) providing consumers with basic price infor-
mation may result in the selection of lesser cost al-
ternatives, all else being equal relative to the pa-
tient’s care, and is integral to providing adequate 
competition in the market; 
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(6) the WAC is a factual, objective, and 
uncontroversial definition for the list price of a 
medication, in that it is defined in statute, reflects 
an understood place in the supply chain, and is at 
the sole discretion of the manufacturer to set; 
(7) there is a governmental interest in ensuring 
that consumers who seek to purchase pharma-
ceuticals for purposes of promoting their health and 
safety understand the objective list price of any 
pharmaceutical that they are encouraged through 
advertisements to purchase, which allows consumers 
to make informed purchasing decisions; and 
(8) there is a governmental interest in miti-
gating wasteful expenditures and promoting the effi-
cient administration of the Medicare program by 
slowing the growth of Federal spending on prescrip-
tion drugs. 
SEC. 3. REQUIREMENT THAT DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER AD-
VERTISEMENTS FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS 
AND BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS INCLUDE AN 
APPROPRIATE DISCLOSURE OF PRICING IN-
FORMATION. 
Part A of title XI of the Social Security Act is 
amended by adding at the end the following new section: 
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‘‘SEC. 1150D. REQUIREMENT THAT DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER 
ADVERTISEMENTS 
FOR 
PRESCRIPTION 
DRUGS AND BIOLOGICALS INCLUDE AN AP-
PROPRIATE DISCLOSURE OF PRICING INFOR-
MATION. 
‘‘(a) REQUIREMENT.— 
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph (2), 
not later than July 1, 2026, the Secretary shall re-
quire that each direct-to-consumer advertisement for 
a prescription drug or biological product for which 
payment is available under title XVIII or XIX and 
that is required to include the information relating 
to side effects, contraindications, and effectiveness 
described in section 202.1(e)(1) of title 21, Code of 
Federal Regulations (or any successor regulation) 
also include an appropriate disclosure of pricing in-
formation, as described in subsection (b), with re-
spect to such prescription drug or biological product. 
‘‘(2) EXEMPTION.—The requirement under 
paragraph (1) shall not apply to a prescription drug 
or biological product for which the wholesale acquisi-
tion cost for a 30-day supply of (or, if applicable, a 
typical course of treatment as set forth in the ap-
proved label for the primary indication addressed in 
the advertisement for) such prescription drug or bio-
logical product is less than $35. 
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‘‘(b) APPROPRIATE DISCLOSURE OF PRICING INFOR-
MATION.—For the purposes of subsection (a), an appro-
priate disclosure of pricing information, with respect to 
a prescription drug or biological product— 
‘‘(1) shall clearly and conspicuously disclose the 
wholesale acquisition cost for a 30-day supply of (or, 
if applicable, a typical course of treatment for) such 
prescription drug or biological product; and 
‘‘(2) may explain that a consumer may pay a 
different amount for such prescription drug or bio-
logical product than such wholesale acquisition cost 
depending on the health insurance coverage of the 
consumer. 
‘‘(c) RULEMAKING.—Not later than 1 year after the 
date of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall pro-
mulgate final regulations to carry out this section, includ-
ing establishing requirements for— 
‘‘(1) the visual and audio components, with re-
spect to each medium of direct-to-consumer adver-
tisement, to communicate the wholesale acquisition 
cost of the advertised prescription drug or biological 
product; and 
‘‘(2) the amount of time for a manufacturer to 
update any direct-to-consumer advertisement to re-
flect any change to the wholesale acquisition cost of 
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the advertised prescription drug or biological prod-
uct. 
‘‘(d) SANCTIONS.—Any manufacturer of a prescrip-
tion drug or biological product, or an agent of such manu-
facturer, that violates the requirement of this section may 
be subject to a civil money penalty of not more than 
$100,000 for each such violation. The provisions of section 
1128A (other than subsections (a) and (b)) shall apply 
to civil money penalties under the preceding sentence in 
the same manner as they apply to a penalty or proceeding 
under section 1128A(a). 
‘‘(e) PUBLIC REPORTING.—In order to enforce the 
requirement under this section, the Secretary may use in-
formation reported about manufacturers that fail to com-
ply with such requirement. 
‘‘(f) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 
‘‘(1) BIOLOGICAL
PRODUCT.—The term ‘bio-
logical product’ means any biological product (as de-
fined in section 351(i) of the Public Health Service 
Act) that is licensed by the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration pursuant to section 351 and is subject to the 
requirements of section 503(b)(1) of the Federal 
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. 
‘‘(2) PRESCRIPTION
DRUG.—The term ‘pre-
scription drug’ means any drug (as defined in sec-
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tion 201(g) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cos-
metic Act) that has been approved by the Food and 
Drug Administration pursuant to section 505 of 
such Act and is subject to the requirements of sec-
tion 503(b)(1) of such Act. 
‘‘(3) WHOLESALE
ACQUISITION
COST.—The 
term ‘wholesale acquisition cost’ has the meaning 
given such term in section 1847A(c)(6)(B). 
‘‘(g) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There 
are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be 
necessary for the purposes of carrying out this section.’’. 
Æ 
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