Eli Lilly makes transparency vow

With all the talk about big pharma paying physicians for this or that, Eli Lilly is taking on the role of industry forerunner. In a proactive move, the pharma giant says it will start to become transparent about just how much cash it doles out to physicians and for what purpose.

Perhaps with more and more members of Congress setting a disclosure bill in motion, Lilly decided to come face to face with what might be inevitable. Regardless of what happens, it's a decent PR move and pharma companies definitely need good PR these days.   

Specifically, Lilly will disclose how much it pays individual physicals for advisory roles, speeches and other services, as long as the payments are more than $500. The listing will be on a public database. However, Lilly will not be disclosing payments to physicians for travel, gifts and entertainment at this time. 

- here's Lilly's release
- read the Associated Press story

Related Articles:
Arms twisted, pharma promises disclosure
Doc disclosure gets boost from AZ, Merck
Pharma racks up multibillion-dollar marketing bill
Senate investigates pharma influence on CME