Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13607

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Publication type: news

Cohen D.
Christmas Comes Early-as Lilly Reveals First-Quarter Healthcare Grants
Alliance for Human Research Protection 2008 May 4
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/18/87/

Full text:

Eli Lilly and Company, the 7th largest pharmaceutical firm in the world, has released a registry of some of its recent charitable grants to healthcare organizations and grants to firms that design and deliver continuing medical education (CME) courses.

The registry shows how hundreds of medical associations, scientific societies, patient groups, medical schools and other organizations benefit from the largesse of the drug industry. A copy of the full registry from Lilly’s Grant Office is available at:
https://www.lillygrantoffice.com/docs/q1_08_registry_report.pdf

According to the data in the list, 435 grants totaling $12.8 million were made during the first quarter of 2008. The size of the average grant was $29,475. (These do not include charitable grants made by the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation. In 2006, the last year for which records are publicly available, the Foundation gave out $25.8 million, but not for CME purposes).

Although the grants identified in the newly-released list cover programs related to many illnesses and conditions, especially cancer and diabetes, the lion’s share of this 1st quarter total, $5.6 million or 44% of the total, has gone to psychiatric and mental health organizations, via 128 grants.

Here’s how these break down:

1) Private CME firms received 26 grants totaling nearly $2.5 million, or 44%.

2) Patient and advocacy groups received 50 grants totaling $982,050, or 18%.
The largest portion went to a stalwart ally of the pharmaceutical industry, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill-National Office (NAMI), which received $520,000. Most of the remaining amount went to various state branch offices of NAMI.

3) A similar amount and percentage, $1 million (18%), went to professional associations and scientific societies, which received 32 grants. Here, the largest portion went to another trustworthy partner, the American Psychiatric Association, which received $633,190, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which received $180,000.

4) Hospitals and treatment centers, and medical schools each received about half a million dollars, or 10% each of the total psychiatry grants. In the first category, virtually the entire amount went to Massachusetts General Hospital. In the second group of grants, about $342,000 went to University of California, Irvine.

Grants for CME and other educational programs reveal Lilly’s interest in shaping physicians’ thinking concerning a newly-minted “disease,” fibromyalgia, which is treated mostly with psychiatric drugs. Eleven grants totaling nearly $1.2 million went to design fibromyalgia courses for physicians. Another $873,000 went to design courses on bipolar disorder, including $25,000 to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for a course with the evocative title, “Early Onset Bipolar Disorder: What Those in the Know, Know.”

Altogether, the $12.6 million that Lilly gave out this first quarter represent a minuscule portion of the revenues from a single one of Lilly’s blockbusters. For example, Zyprexa had sales of $1.120 billion during the first quarter of 2008. Cymbalta, Lilly’s antidepressant which the company is pushing for fibromyalgia in commercials on how “depression hurts,”, had sales of $605 million during the first quarter, an increase of 37% from the prior year quarter. (See:
http://www.rttnews.com/sp/todaystop.asp?date=04/21/2008&item=30&vid=0)

By funding courses in medical schools, dinners and meetings of state associations of physicians, pharmacists, and nurses, symposia of national, state, and local advocacy and policy groups of the most varied kind, Eli Lilly is spreading good will and influence, and for a very small cost-a drop in the bucket. All other large pharmaceutical companies are doing similarly, and the $12.6 million that Lilly has divulged can be multiplied accordingly throughout the industry.

This indirect promotional expenditure is itself only a small part of the total promotional budget, which includes free drug samples, visits by sales reps, ads in medical journals, direct-to-consumer ads, direct grants to physicians for research, lecturing, and consulting, and numerous other marketing activities. A recent independent estimate put the total annual promotional spending by the pharmaceutical industry at $59 billion per year.