Purdue Pharma is preparing for an event that has recently become rare in pharmaceuticals—a big-budget blitz for of a potential blockbuster drug. Intermezzo, which treats middle-of-the-night insomnia, hit pharmacy shelves April 5 and will receive a $100 million marketing outlay over 12 months. That’s according to a recent 10-K from Transcept Pharmaceuticals, which has sold the marketing rights to Purdue, a company perhaps best known for painkiller OxyContin. That’s big news in an industry in which nine-figure ad campaigns, once the norm, are pretty much history. A combination of factors, including a dramatic economic downturn, drugs that have gone generic, and a parched pipeline that has resulted in fewer launches, means Big Pharma’s ad spending is no longer big.
