OBJECTIVES: Pharmaceutical companies adopt distinctive marketing strategies to advertise drugs for hypertension and psychosis. This study explored the variance in stereotypes related to gender disparity and activity status (passive and active) used in video direct-to-consumer advertisements for anti-psychotics and statins class of drugs. METHODS: Fifty-eight unique video DTCA aired on NBC and CNN evening news were analyzed. The Vanderbilt TV News Archive Database was utilized to obtain random samples from each year which constituted to final sample of nine anti-psychotic and forty-nine statins ads aired between ­­1^st January 1998 and 31^st December 2011. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using Cohen’s Kappa and was found to be acceptable for the variables used in the instrument. Data was analyzed using Fischer Exact test using SAS 9.3®. RESULTS: Out of the 58 ads, 41-ads portrayed males and 32-ads portrayed females as the primary character. The proportion of male character was significantly higher in statins ads compared to ads for antipsychotics (79.59 % vs. 22.22 %, p=0.0016). However, the proportion of female character was significantly greater in ads for antipsychotics compared to statins (88.89 % vs. 48.98%, p=0.034). In addition, a female character with passive status was significantly higher in antipsychotic ads compared to statins (66.67 % vs. 32.65 %, p=0.055). In contrast, a male character with active status was significantly greater in statins compared to antipsychotics (38.78 % vs. 0 %, p=0.0012).  CONCLUSIONS: Gender and activity status stereotypes are quite prevalent in both anti-depressants and cardiovascular drugs. Males with active status were more likely to be featured in statins whereas female characters with passive status were more likely to be featured in anti-psychotics. Stereotypes in DTCA may potentially bias the decision making ability and prescribing behavior of physicians.