The Golden State passed a bill four years ago that made binding PhRMA’s marketing guidelines and requires drugmakers to set an upper limit on the dollar value of gifts they could give to a doc in a given year. To prove compliance, drugmakers must provide a plan, choose and abide by annual per-doctor gift limits, [...]

The legislation is being called the Physicians Payments Sunshine Act and would require drug and device makers to disclose the amount of money they give docs through payments, gifts, honoraria, travel and other means. Penalties would range from $10,000 to $100,000 per violation.
“Right now the public has no way to know whether a doctor’s [...]

Three out of four Americans would have their prescription filled in their doctor’s office instead of a pharmacy if given the choice, according to a new survey. Translation? Docs are missing an opportunity to make more money. Licensing issues aside, wouldn’t that be lovely in an era of capitation, pressure to round up patients for [...]

Of course, closing the door on sales reps also means giving up samples, new info, pens, pizza, and maybe baseball tickets (for those docs who accept such things). And as many docs will tell you, samples are important for poor patients. That aside, an interesting piece in Medical Economics offers a quickie breakdown of the [...]

Not at all, right? So we’ll get right to the point. Almost two-thirds of US doc favor a moratorium, with half supporting a one-two year wait before manufacturers can begin promoting new drugs in that way, according to a new study by TNS Healthcare.
The poll contacted over 1,000 docs and 251 consumers, and of the [...]

At the Senate hearing yesterday that explored how drugmakers try to sway docs, there was one telling exchange between Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, and Majorie Powell, the trade group’s assistant general counsel, who was testifying - in vain - that drugmakers know how to behave themselves.
What’s particularly interesting is Powell’s presumptuous [...]

That’s the word from the state’s attorney general, Bill Sorrell, who has just released his fourth report on pharma marketing disclosures filed by drugmakers. From July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006, 81 drugmakers spent $2.25 million on fees, travel expenses and other payments to Vermont docs - primarily psychiatrists - hospitals, universities and others [...]

To make clinical trials successful, drugmakers need several things - especially doctors. But in Minnesota, pharma regularly pays docs who have been disciplined or criticized by a medical board, according to an analysis of state records by The New York Times. Experts say the problem exists on a national scope.
From 1997 to 2005, at [...]

There’s nothing like a convention. And more than 15,000 doctors visited Washington, D.C. last week to attend Digestive Disease Week, the largest-ever gathering of gastrointestinal physicians. So Integrity in Science Watch paid a visit. Here’s the report:
“As soon as each doctor walked onto the convention floor, they were handed purple-pill backpacks advertising Nexium from AstraZeneca. [...]

The American Medical Association is nothing if not clever. Now, the organization is working with a startup company that encourages doc to swap ideas online and charges investment firms to view postings that could serve as tip-offs to side effects and other market-moving medical trends, the Associated Press reports.
The partnership was struck with a [...]