Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14105

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Viser M.
Drug firm gift ban to test Patrick
The Boston Globe 2008 Aug 8
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/08/08/drug_firm_gift_ban_to_test_patrick/

Full text:

Life sciences groups urge opposition

For months, Governor Deval Patrick has assiduously courted the life sciences industry to come to Massachusetts, offering tax breaks to companies that locate here and research grants to those who want to cure major diseases here. The industry has responded by showering accolades upon him, presenting him with its Governor of the Year award at an international biotechnology conference in San Diego.

Now this newfound relationship may be put to the test.

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology groups have launched a lobbying blitz to try to persuade Patrick to kill contentious legislation aimed at clamping down on drug companies that provide gifts and meals to physicians.

The provision, included as part of a sweeping healthcare bill approved by House and Senate lawmakers in the final hours of the legislative session last week, requires the companies to report to the state Department of Public Health any payment or gift of more than $50 made to a healthcare professional. Those gifts would be publicly reported on the state’s website.

Proponents say the reporting requirements would limit marketing influences in medicine, which could reduce costs and encourage doctors to diagnose based on the best treatment, rather than the most generous pharmaceutical companies.

But several politically connected groups – including the Massachusetts High Technology Council, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce – are fighting against that provision in the legislation, saying it would have a “chilling effect” on the biotech companies that the state has been working so hard to bring to Massachusetts.

They have sent letters and e-mails, placed phone calls, and issued “action alerts” encouraging their tens of thousands of members to contact the governor’s office. Six groups – including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a national consortium of biotechnology companies that named Patrick its Governor of the Year in June – took out a full-page advertisement in yesterday’s Globe saying the legislation would “demonize an industry and the thousands of professionals that comprise it.”

In the ad, the organizations said the new legislation would undermine all the progress Massachusetts has made and have “a direct and immediate devastating impact on the lives of thousands of people across the Commonwealth” by curtailing clinical trials here. Their reasoning: Companies would invest in states that did not require them to file such reports.

“We are convinced this legislation will erode the state’s competitive edge,” John Heffernan, a vice president at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, wrote this week in a letter to the governor. “In fact, news of Massachusetts’ toughest-in-the-nation policy has already created negative buzz in the life sciences industry.”

Twenty-four House lawmakers joined the push yesterday and sent a letter to the governor urging him to strike the provision. “After all of your leadership and the Legislature’s work supporting the life sciences industry within Massachusetts, it is almost inconceivable that such a provision could find its way into such a great bill,” the letter said.

With few other states imposing such reporting requirements, critics fear the legislation could set a precedent nationwide, particularly with many healthcare specialists watching Massachusetts and its landmark healthcare law.

Consumer groups have been mounting a similar campaign, trying to get the governor to sign the legislation as is.

“We are really happy with the compromise that came out of the Legislature last week,” said Lisa Kaplan Howe, a policy manager at Health Care for All, a consumer coalition. “It’s a great middle ground and a great step forward to dealing with the inappropriate influence of marketing, and gifts in particular, in healthcare administration.”

Administration officials are reviewing the legislation and have until Monday to decide how to proceed.

Patrick could veto the legislation, which would be a dire step, because it contains dozens of other widely supported provisions. He could also send an amendment back to the House and Senate that strikes only the controversial provision. Because the Legislature has completed its formal session, any amendments from the governor are likely to stand.

Industry officials fear that forcing companies to report the gifts publicly would allow competitors to gain an edge in Massachusetts, which would be one of the few states to require such reports.

“If I were a competitor and could monitor what my pharmaceutical competitor is spending and who they’re meeting with, that would give me an advantage,” said Christopher R. Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council.

The provision clamping down on gifts to healthcare providers was the most controversial component of sweeping legislation that seeks to contain the state’s rising healthcare costs.

As originally proposed by Senate President Therese Murray, the bill would have imposed a ban on gifts. But this provision was opposed by House lawmakers, who approved a stripped-down version to allow companies to adopt a voluntary code of conduct.

“This will help to at least allow us to know who’s being affected by these gifts and what the amounts are,” said Senator Richard T. Moore, an Uxbridge Democrat and a chief advocate for the legislation. “The public has a right to know of the pervasive and, I think, corrupting influence that pharmaceutical companies have on the cost of healthcare . . . Patients ought to know if doctors are being influenced more by corporations than their patients’ healthcare needs.”

Under the legislation, the state Department of Public Health would also adopt regulations governing the giving of those gifts. At the very least, the regulations would include a marketing code of conduct similar to one recently announced by the pharmaceutical industry’s trade association. That voluntary code would ban most meals at restaurants and trinkets such as mugs and pens, but still allows companies to cater lunches at doctors’ offices and hospitals, where salespeople promote their products directly to physicians.

The state would impose a $5,000 fine for each violation by pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers.

At one point, the legislation also contained another provision opposed by the industry and supported by consumer groups, which would have banned a practice called data mining. This practice allows pharmaceutical and biotech companies to hone their sales pitches by purchasing data about the prescribing patterns of individual doctors.

This provision was dropped from the bill.

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.