Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14395

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

Goldstein J.
Merck to Report (Some) Payments to Doctors, Medical Education Groups
The Wall Street Journal 2008 Sep 25
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/09/25/merck-to-report-some-payments-to-doctors-medical-education-groups/

Full text:

A day after Eli Lilly said it would start reporting payments to doctors, Merck says it’s going to beef up its own public reporting.

Starting next month, the drug maker will disclose grants one of its divisions makes for medical education in the U.S. Next year, Merck will start disclosing grants made by other divisions to “medical, scientific, and patient organizations.”

Also next year, Merck’s going to start reporting payments it makes to doctors who speak on behalf of the company and its products. That stops short of Lilly’s plan to report payments both to doctors who speak for the company and to those who serve as consultants.

Merck and Lilly are both staying a step ahead of the congressional shotgun on this one – the Physician Payments Sunshine Act that’s rattling around the halls of Congress would require drug makers and medical-device companies to report payments to docs.

Lilly and Merck, like many big industry players, have endorsed the bill, which the industry apparently prefers to a patchwork of state laws that would require companies to meet different reporting requirements in different states.