Congress eyes sunshine on pharma's ties to fast-growing 'stealth' prescribers

Two U.S. senators introduced a bill last week meant to close a loophole in the Sunshine Act--and add a rapidly burgeoning group of healthcare providers to the database of payments from pharma and devicemakers. The bipartisan pair, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), want to add "physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and other advance practice nurses" to the Open Payments database, which tracks pharma's gifts and other payments to doctors. PAs and nurses are among a fast-growing group of "stealth" prescribers that drugmakers sometimes overlook in marketing their meds, consultants have said. More from FiercePharmaMarketing