Drug Industry to Announce Revised Code on Marketing

By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON, 11 july 2008 — The pens, pads, mugs and other gifts that drug makers have long showered on doctors will be banned from pharmaceutical marketing campaigns under a voluntary guideline that the industry is expected to announce Thursday.
The industry’s Code on Interactions with Health Care Professionals will ask the chief executives of large drug makers to certify in writing that “they have policies and procedures in place to foster compliance with the code.” The code was written by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s trade association.
But the code provides no definite limits on the millions of dollars spent on speaking and consulting arrangements that drug makers have forged with tens of thousands of doctors. Nor does it ban the routine provision of office breakfasts and lunches, or the occasional invitation to educational dinners at fancy restaurants.
“Informative, ethical and professional relationships between health care providers and America’s pharmaceutical research companies are instrumental to effective patient care,” said Richard T. Clark, chief executive of Merck and chairman of the trade association.
Some industry critics praised the new rules.
“We’ve been pushing to see reforms like this for some time now,” said Senator Herb Kohl, a Democrat from Wisconsin. “Consumers will undoubtedly be the beneficiaries of these industry changes.” Mr. Kohl has co-sponsored a bill to require drug and medical device companies to publicly disclose payments to doctors of $500 or more.
Other critics dismissed the new rules, which are entirely voluntary. “It strikes me as an attempt to persuade people against doing anything that’s serious,” said Sharon Treat, executive director of the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices.
A growing number of states have passed or are considering legislation requiring drug makers to disclose payments to doctors. Minnesota has banned gifts to doctors valued at more than $50, including food; Massachusetts is considering a similar ban.
Earlier this year, Christopher A. Viehbacher, now president for North American pharmaceuticals at GlaxoSmithKline, wrote to Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi of the state’s House, suggesting his company might not invest as much in Massachusetts if “political developments” worked to “devalue” its assets there.
Mr. Viehbacher said that the proposed gift ban would make Massachusetts “the most hostile state in the nation when it comes to biopharmaceutical sales.”
But after years of opposing state efforts to require disclosures of payments to doctors, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America recently announced support for the legislation to create the national registry of such payments, sponsored by Mr. Kohl and Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican from Iowa.
On Wednesday, Attorney General William H. Sorrell of Vermont released that state’s annual report on pharmaceutical marketing efforts. As in past years, the state found that drug makers gave more money to psychiatrists than to doctors in any other specialty. Eleven psychiatrists in the state received an average of $56,944 each.
Seven of the 10 most marketed drugs in Vermont treat psychiatric conditions. The report found that 84 drug companies spent more than $3 million in the 2007 fiscal year to market their products in the state, a 33 percent increase over reported expenditures the year before.
The new marketing code requires drug makers to set annual limits on the amounts they will pay doctors to deliver educational lectures to colleagues, although the code does not specify what the limit should be. Such a cap will require drug makers to track across divisions the amounts paid to doctors, which could make complying with a national registry far easier.
The drug industry last updated its marketing code in 2002, when it banned “dine and dash” events in which drug makers provided free take-out dinners, Christmas trees and gas to doctors who agreed to listen to brief sales pitches. The earlier code also banned golf outings and free tickets to sporting events, bans which remain in effect. The new code takes effect in January.
But neither the earlier rules nor those expected to be announced Thursday apply to biotechnology or medical device makers, many of which continue to give expensive gifts and resort vacations to high-profile physicians.
Billy Tauzin, president of the drug industry trade association, said, “This updated code fortifies our companies’ commitment to ensure their medicines are marketed in a manner that benefits patients and enhances the practice of medicine.”