Cephalon Discloses Payments To Doctors
5 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 2nd, 2010 // 8:51 am
Cephalon has joined the growing ranks of drugmakers disclosing payments to docs - and is the first to do so thanks to a Corporate Integrity Agreement. And as The Pink Sheet’s Brenda Sandburg points out, Cephalon discloses a longer time range than the voluntary efforts made by others, but its list only covers doctors, not all health care providers (see the full story here).
Why? The CIA required payments only to docs. All totaled, Cephalon paid 937 docs for consulting and speaking services during 2009, with its top-paid doctor earning $149,900 (see list). By contrast, Merck, Lilly and Glaxo list other healthcare providers getting money. The CIA was part of a $425 million settlement with the Department of Justice to resolve criminal charges that Cephalon engaged in off-label marketing of three drugs.
photo courtesy of Jerome Kassirer
[disclosure: Ed Silverman is an editor at the Pink Sheet]
pharmavet
I’ll try and pre-empt the dart throwing by stating that Cephalon’s highest paid consultant, Dr. Joseph Valenza is one of the foremost pain management experts in the country. I also know of his work at closer range, as we are in the same state. If he was paid $149K he was worth every penny of it.
Pharma Conduct Guy
Obviously, the release of payment records to health care professionals (HCP) by pharma and medical device companies has raised the ire of people on both sides of the issue. Just because a HCP receives money from one of these companies does not mean that that he she is corrupt, which is the same case with politicians (don’t laugh).
However, to say that receipt of financial benefits is never a factor in someone’s decision making is naive. When public trust is bestowed upon someone to make an important decision on behalf of others, the people who will be affected by those decisions should question and understand the factors that influence the decision maker. When the decisions are being made on issues that are not black and white, the potential for subjectivity, and hence, bias, becomes greater.
Although the release of this payment information might cause some patients to question their physician’s objectivity, I don’t see that as a bad outcome. An important component of free markets is information symmetry. Drug companies routinely implore patients to “talk to your doctor” with direct-to-consumer-advertising (DTCA). These companies routinely assert that DTCA is an important source of information for patients to take a more active role in their health care.
Because the physician is an important factor in the patient’s health care, HCP payment information helps minimize information assymetry, which any true “free market” proponent should support. If a patient sees that their physician has received a significant amount of money from a particular pharmaceutical company and that physician has also prescribed them a drug from that company, the patient can “talk to their doctor.”
Sheryl Williams
Cephalon is disclosing payments to all health care professionals who can write a prescription. Non-physician prescribers vary by state.
BP Doc
Gee, I wonder how many will owe back taxes? Some of these numbers are outrageous! Bribes?
Lily Chu
Don’t they know what is conflict of interests? It sounds so naive that they can keep objective on the drugs they prescribed while receiving money from drug companies.
ACTIQ had caused over 100 deaths in US including children. It is very dangerous especially for people who are not opoid tolerant. I wonder how dare those doctors prescribe it to those patients? Didn’t they read all labels and information?