PhRMA

PhRMA poised to fight Obama plans

Tracy Staton — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:24:10 -0500

Look out, Barack Obama. Big Pharma is preparing to launch its first blitz against your healthcare plans.

The country's biggest pharma lobbying group--PhRMA--is readying a major public relations campaign supporting "free market health care." The multimillion-dollar campaign includes national television advertising, scheduled to air for the first time next week. It's all designed to head off President-elect Obama's expected campaign for Medicare to negotiate prices for drugs used by its beneficiaries.

Lots of companies stand to lose if the new administration really does reform healthcare. But drugmakers may be closest to the line of fire. According to the Washington Times, pharma could see a $30 billion reduction in revenues if the government starts to negotiate drug prices as many other countries do.

PhRMA's push won't directly attack Obama's plans; with such a popular president-elect, such an attack could backfire. Instead, the association's ads will take a more oblique approach: "We're going to do an ad campaign designed to make people aware of the importance of preserving your free-market health care system," PhRMA's Ken Johnson told the Times. Coming soon to a TV screen near you.

- read the Washington Times article

Docs like hearing from reps, survey says

Tracy Staton — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:47:07 -0400

Pharma reps have been getting a tough shake lately, what with massive layoffs and a new industry code that curtails some tried-and-true sales techniques. Not to mention efforts to ban them altogether from various academic institutions and even require licensing in the District of Columbia. Now, though, a new study offers a welcome respite: More than three-fourths of doctors say they're willing to see reps any time of day, and only one-fourth require an appointment.

True, 17 percent of the 230,000 medical practices surveyed said they don't admit reps at all. Some 30 percent of hospital-owned practices bar reps, and another 40 percent require appointments. But still, that leaves 83 percent of docs open to sales-rep input.

Meanwhile, a PhRMA survey found that the "vast majority" of physicians like getting info from reps about drug interactions, new meds, and patient assistance programs--but only 11 percent say that info greatly affects their prescribing decisions. You can read that last number a couple of ways. It's either more bad news for reps, if companies think docs aren't using their input to make choices. Or it could be the kind of figure companies can use to legitimize their sales calls; if reps don't have undue influence, then maybe they shouldn't be viewed with such a jaded eye.

- see the doc survey at Pharmalot

Pharma aims to forestall DTC legislation

Tracy Staton — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:37:54 -0400

Pharma industry lawyers descended on the U.S. capital this week to meet with House Energy and Commerce Committee staffers, hoping to forestall legislation that could limit drugmakers' ability to advertise their products, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports. As you know, that committee has been dogging pharma on its DTC advertising practices all year, and it staged a tough hearing on the subject in May.

So attorneys from PhRMA, the trade group, made the pilgrimage to counter some of the committee's proposals on DTC limitations. The association has been working on updating its voluntary guidelines--akin to the doc-gift-and-disclosure code announced last week--in hopes of forestalling legislation. Chairman John Dingell told the Health Blog that if PhRMA's new guidelines show a "serious effort to resolve the issues," then the committee will hold off on any more embarrassing hearings. But, he added, "The Committee... expect[s] results within a credible timeframe or we will be forced to consider whether a public airing would be a more productive way to proceed." Uh-oh.

- read the Health Blog post

Massachusetts nukes doc-gift ban

Tracy Staton — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:27:05 -0400

It looks as if PhRMA's new marketing code has staved off legislative action in at least one state. Massachusetts House members, who have been debating an outright ban on industry gifts to doctors, stripped that provision from a bill making its way toward passage. The bill also lost its doctor-payment disclosure requirements, too. Instead, the measure will require drugmakers to adopt--drum roll, please--a code of conduct.

As you know, PhRMA proposed a new code last week that would keep reps from taking doctors out to restaurants and handing out pens, mugs, mouse pads, and the like in their offices. Other pharma execs can entertain physicians, though, and reps can bring in food when there's an educational program at a doctor's office or hospital.

State senators already had approved a version of the bill--a big effort to rein in healthcare costs, of which these marketing rules are just a part--that included the gift ban. But House members said they were "concerned that the Senate language would deny (doctors and researchers) the kind of information they need," according to the Boston Globe. Senators scoffed, however; one told the Globe, "If you are serious about taking on cost control, you have to take on the...sacred cows of the pharmaceutical industry."

- see the Globe story
- check out the Wall Street Journal Health Blog's take

Tauzin: Pharma must embrace new code

Christe Bruderlin-Nelson — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:41:40 -0400

The current PhRMA president was full of cagey cautions during a conference call with drug makers. "Your house is on fire, and you're still smoking in bed," said the former Louisiana Republican congressional representative, Billy Tauzin, also known as "The Cagey Cajun."

Last week PhRMA announced a new voluntary code for drugmakers and had been working on creating a more comprehensive DTC code, but on the latter, a few large members were ahead of the curve.

Earlier this year, following the a particularly excruciating House hearing in May regarding direct-to-consumer advertising, at least a few companies announced temporary moratoria on ads for new medications and said they would reconsider and limit the roles of physicians in their ads. J&J, Merck, Pfizer and Schering-Plough made those announcements just a few weeks after the hearing.

Now Tauzin says he'll be happy if those companies and others adopt new guidelines that prohibit pens, mugs and drug dinners.

However, some are saying the revised PhRMA code doesn't do nearly enough. According to The Boston Globe, "the revised PhRMA code is neither adequately enforced nor sufficiently stringent to end this unethical marketing practice," in an article that said a law would do the trick, not a code. "The industry has been allowed to self-regulate for years and evidence shows the giving of inappropriate gifts and payments continues to increase significantly."

"Our members were advertising life-saving medicines like it's Pepsi, and that hurt us," Tauzin said.

- get the WSJ blog take
- read more at the Boston Globe

New code bans logo-strewn tchotchkes

Tracy Staton — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:48:17 -0400

They're not the costliest items pharma gives doctors, but they're certainly the flashiest--and now they're no longer allowed. Under a new policy announced today by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, drug reps won't be allowed to hand out logo-covered pens, prescription pads, mugs, clocks, mouse pads, and other freebies at physician's offices. That should cut down on the barrage of logos patients see when they walk into the office. The new marketing code will also ban individual reps from wining and dining doctors at restaurants.

But the code will allow reps to bring food along when they offer "informational presentations" in doctors' offices, according to PhRMA's press release. And it won't limit the millions of dollars spent on speaking and consulting fees--but will require companies to set their own internal limits and track those payments. The latter requirement could be helpful when/if federal legislation forces companies to disclose the amounts they're paying doctors.

Will this voluntary policy satisfy the industry's critics? Some, such as Sen. Herb Kohl, applauded the measure in the New York Times. Others called it a sham designed to forestall "doing anything that's serious." Given the amount of back-and-forth over pharma marketing in recent months, we expect PhRMA's conduct code to prompt plenty of debate.

- check out PhRMA's release
- read the New York Times article
- see the Wall Street Journal Health Blog's take

Big pharma political spending gets results

Christe Bruderlin-Nelson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:28:21 -0400

Is it better to spend another couple hundred million on R&D or use it to make sure you have friends in high places? Ask Big Pharma, which spent a record-breaking chunk of change on political lobbying in 2007, dropping $168 million to help the industry gain influence--and it is paying off. This was a 36 percent increase from the previous year and brings the total cash spent on lobbying by drug and device manufacturers to a whopping billion dollars over the last decade.

Top priorities for lobbying included patent rules, accessing drugs in international free trade agreements, blocking pharmaceutical importation, limiting restrictions on direct-to-consumer ads, extending the Prescription Drug User Fee Act and efforts to expand government funding aimed at insuring low-income children. Some notable payoffs included the removal of some proposed restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising and the passage of two bills aimed at speedier approval processes.

Who were the biggest spenders? According to the Center for Public Integrity, the industry's trade group PhRMA spent $22.7 million, followed by BIO at $7.2 million. The biggest corporate spenders were Amgen ($16.3 million) and Pfizer ($13.8 million). Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, J&J spent between $7.7 billion and $9 billion. Novartis, Merck and Bristol-Myers Squib were the $6-million-dollar players, and Abbott Labs rounded out the top 10, with $4.6 million dedicated to lobbying in 2007.

The Center for Responsive Politics also weighed in, saying the industry has given more money to democrats than republicans for the first time ever for the 2008 elections. Traditionally, Republican-dominated Congresses have been more amenable to the industry. The fact that the Democrats regained Congressional control in 2007 might have influenced the staggering amounts dedicated to lobbying.

- read the Wall Street Journal report
- here's what the Indy Star had to say
- check out the top-10 list at the WSJ blog