Transparency

Merck joins Lilly in disclosure pledge

Tracy Staton — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:03:57 -0400

It didn't take long for other drugmakers to follow Eli Lilly's lead in promising more transparency. Before the end of the day Wednesday, Merck had announced that it would pull the veil on physician payments beginning next year. Johnson & Johnson said it plans to start disclosing funding for professional educational grants, patient-advocacy groups and other healthcare charities, also early next year. And AstraZeneca says it's reviewing its transparency policies, considering recent steps toward disclosure of CME grants as "a floor, not a ceiling" in the openness arena.

Already, Pfizer has said it would disclose CME grants, and so has Lilly. And several drugmakers--namely Merck, AZ, J&J, and Lilly -- have pledged their support to the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which would require pharma firms and device makers to disclose the amount of money they give to doctors.

As you know, the relationships between drugmakers and doctors have been getting lots of scrutiny of late. Congress has shone a spotlight on various extreme examples of financial ties between doctors and researchers and the pharma industry. It seems like it's just a matter of time before the government forces some form of disclosure. It makes sense for drugmakers to get out in front of the legal requirement, if only for PR reasons.

- see Merck's release
- check out the New York Times article

Eli Lilly makes transparency vow

Christe Bruderlin-Nelson — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:11:53 -0400

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

SPOTLIGHT: Pfizer to disclose grants, donations

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:59:52 -0400

Pfizer is pledging "greater transparency" in its dealings with medical, scientific, and patient organizations; its first step is disclosing all grants and charitable contributions for the first quarter of this year. Release | Report

Pfizer goes public with R&D pipeline

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:59:58 -0400

It's tough to take over the world when everyone can see your battle plans--or so thought Pfizer before CEO Jeffrey Kindler pledged transparency. Now the company's future can be viewed at its public R&D pipeline site, which was updated yesterday for the first time since it went online in December. Pfizer has 47 Phase II drugs, 11 Phase III drugs and 14 biologics in its pipeline. An unlucky 13 projects were abandoned.

The pipeline also shows 20 cancer hopefuls moving their way up the charts. But it was an HIV drug that jumped out of the pipeline and onto the market yesterday, with the FDA's approval of Selzentry (maraviroc). It's a first-in-class drug that keeps the virus from entering white blood cells. The accelerated approval is specific to patients with a particular strain of HIV-1, known as R5 virus. Development of the drug for other HIV patients continues, according to Pfizer's pipeline site. Unfortunately, the company hasn't revealed much more about maraviroc's development. Is Pfizer's transparency initiative better than tea leaves? Sure, but it's not exactly the keys to the kingdom.

- see this release on Pfizer's pipeline
- read the release on the FDA approval
- here's the report from StreetInsider on Selzentry
- here's a link to the pipeline

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Troubled Pfizer blueprints biotech venture effort. Report