Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Eli Lilly is to make public information on the payments it gives doctors in exchange for a variety of promotional services, via an online database to be launched in mid-2009. |
Implications | The move will make Eli Lilly the first U.S. company to voluntarily disclose such data, and puts it in a good position ahead of the likely introduction of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which will require even more detailed information on such payments. |
Outlook | Eli Lilly's very public move is likely to pressure other, larger U.S. pharma giants to follow suit, although lobbying by the drugs industry has watered down the level of disclosure that could potentially harm companies' public standing. |
U.S. pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has announced plans to launch an online database detailing the payments it has made to physicians in the United States. The database will be made accessible to the public from the second half of 2009, and will initially contain information on payments made by the company during 2009 to physicians who have acted as speakers and advisors on Lilly's behalf. Further down the line, Lilly will add data on any and all payments made to prescribers, revising the database on an annual basis.
The company was the first U.S. pharma producer to publicly voice its support for legislation proposed by Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Democrat Herbert Kohl (D-Wisconsin) last September. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2007, which can be viewed in full on the Library of Congress website (see here), goes so far as to demand quarterly transparency reports from pharmaceutical companies, providing details of all the physicians that they have made payments to, as well as the size of each payment and the nature of any compensation or gifts, discounts, fees or honoraria. The Act also stipulates that an annual summary report should be made by each producer of drugs or medical devices, summarising their physician payments for the year, and calls for fines of up to US$100,000 for non-compliance. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act is still being debated in Congress, and Eli Lilly has said that it would harmonise its database with the Act—once it is passed—by 2011.
Outlook and Implications
Eli Lilly's backing for the Act came only after months of intensive lobbying by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry which is believed to have resulted in the Act being watered down and revised (see United States: 14 May 2008: Disclosure Norms Tighten as U.S. Senate Revises Bill on Doctor Gifts). Drug-makers' main concern is that fully disclosing their reliance on physicians to promote their products will result on state pressure to curb payments made to physicians for purposes that could be viewed as purely promotional. There is currently no regulation controlling promotional payments to physicians in the United States, and the relationship between medical doctors and the pharmaceutical industry is longstanding and well-developed. Lilly's very public show of disclosing its payments to physician speakers and advisors is likely to pressure even larger drug firms such as Pfizer and Merck & Co into following suit. Lilly has been canny in its choice of payments data to be made public, as it will be more difficult to criticise the payment of doctors to share information about new treatment methods at scientific congresses.