1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Drug-price Transparency in Communications (DTC) Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals is legally permitted in only 2 developed countries, the United States and New Zealand. (2) In 2018, pharmaceutical ad spending exceeded $6,046,000,000, a 4.8-percent increase over 2017, resulting in the average American seeing 9 drug advertisements per day. (3) In 2015, pharmaceutical companies spent more than $100,000,000 on advertising with respect to each of the 16 most advertised brand-name drugs and biological products, primarily new and relatively high-cost medications. (4) The 10 most commonly advertised drugs have list prices ranging from $535 to $11,000 per 30-day supply or usual course of therapy. (5) According to a 2011 Congressional Budget Office report, direct-to-consumer advertising is used to promote only a small set of specific drugs, typically the expensive, brand-name medications. And the top-selling drugs in any given year are frequently among the drugs with the largest expenditures for direct-to-consumer advertising. (6) According to a 2011 Congressional Budget Office report, pharmaceutical manufacturers advertise their products directly to consumers in an attempt to boost demand for their products and thereby raise the price that consumers are willing to pay, increase the quantity of drugs sold, or achieve some combination of the two. (7) Studies show that patients are more likely to ask their doctor for a specific medication and for the doctor to write a prescription for it, if a patient has seen an advertisement for such medication, regardless of whether the medication is clinically appropriate for the patient or whether a lower-cost generic may be available. (8) 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