Pfizer Follows Lilly, Merck and GSK Into The Sunshine « Medical Detox Programs in a stress-free environment

February 24, 2009

Pfizer Follows Lilly, Merck and GSK Into The Sunshine

Filed under: Big Pharma, Eli Lilly, Merck, pharmaceutical giants, pharmaceutical sales, pharmaceuticals — Rod Malcolm @ 9:32 am

The Grassley-Kohl Physicians Payments Sunshine Act is not yet through Congress, but Big Pharma is jumping the gun with some transparency promises, perhaps hoping to head off the Act’s more stringent requirements.

Pfizer has announced it will start reporting financial contributions to doctors beginning in July this year. Payments for clinical trials, speeches, consulting, gifts and meals will be posted on the company’s Web site starting early next year.

Pfizer pledged to disclose payments that total more than $500 yearly, including non-monetary items whose value exceeds $25. The new Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2009, sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI), requires pharma and biotech companies to report all payments over $100. Those that failed to comply would incur a $1 million dollar fine.

Last year Lilly, Merck, and GlaxoSmithKline also announced that they would begin reporting payments and honoraria to physicians, each with its own idea of what it is willing to divulge.

It looks like Pfizer is taking its cue from a similar transparency bill that failed to get Congressional approval back in 2007. It required a $500 reporting requirement.

According to a report at PharmaExec, Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said the new version of the Act approaches micromanagement.

“It’s a bit regressive. It goes backwards instead of forwards in terms of reporting requirements,” said Epperly. “We agree that we ought to have transparency, openness and honesty on this, [but] there can be a point where it just crosses the line of being too burdensome.”

I can’t help wondering what Epperly is really going on about. Family physicians certainly won’t suffer any inconvenience from the Sunshine Act. Could it be that they might not get as many free lunches and pens?

And meanwhile, any micromanaging is going to be taking place over at Big Pharma’s and Biotech’s house, not the family doctor’s office.

Big Pharma won’t have a choice, says the PharmaExec report, if the bill is pushed through. With the state of the economy, and the new Obama administration promoting transparency in big business, the new Sunshine Act could gain more momentum this time.

Let’s face it. Big Pharma is jumping on the bandwagon early to dazzle Congress and head off passage of the new bill, which has more stringent requirements. The theory goes that if enough congressmen get the wacky idea that Big Pharma is willing to ‘self-police’, they’ll nix the Act and it will die like the 2007 bill.

I hope the Act makes it through Congress unscathed, and that Pfizer and the rest of Big Pharma and Biotech are made to hew to it exactly.

Medical Detox Programs in a stress-free environment

February 24, 2009

Pfizer Follows Lilly, Merck and GSK Into The Sunshine

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