[Ip-health] NYT/AP: GSK to change doctor training policy, post payments to web

[Suerie Moon]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]


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September 21, 2009
GlaxoSmithKline Changes Doctor Training Policy By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 1:13 p.m. ET
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC said Monday it is making major changes in its funding of educational
programs for doctors, reducing the number it sponsors and switching its
focus to independent ones with balanced information.
The change follows similar moves by some major competitors --
possibly concerned about proposed federal rules that could be tougher
-- and a ban Glaxo instituted this year on all corporate political
contributions worldwide.
The key change announced Monday involves an end to funding
educational programs run by commercial medical education and
communication companies. Some have been found to help drug companies by
ghostwriting research articles on their drugs for medical journals and
getting respected academic researchers to claim to be the primary
authors.
Medical education programs often promote a drugmaker's new,
generally expensive drug and give little information about its risks or
whether it works better than older, cheaper drugs. The programs,
generally offered at medical conferences at resorts, provide credits
toward annual requirements doctors must meet to keep their training and
medical license current.
Glaxo said it will now sponsor only programs given by national
professional medical associations or teaching hospitals and their
affiliates, who must seek grants from the company and be accredited.
Glaxo will post all approved grants on a Web site, www.us-gsk.com.
''We will continue funding those with the greatest potential to
improve patient health,'' Deirdre Connolly, Glaxo's president of North
American Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement. ''This is one more step
in our efforts to be more transparent in the way we operate our
business and interact with health care providers.''
Starting in the fourth quarter, the company will begin publishing
fees it pays to health professionals for speaking at doctor dinner
meetings, consulting services and the like.
The shift come as congressional investigators, consumer groups and
the media ratchet up criticism over the increasing influence drug and
medical device makers wield over the practice of medicine, particularly
which drugs or devices patients get.
GSK is the world's No. 4 drugmaker by annual revenue, according to drug data firm IMS Health.
Some other major drug companies have announced similar changes.
Top-ranked Pfizer Inc. of New York early next year will start to disclose all payments
totaling $500 per year or more to doctors and other medical personnel
who prescribe drugs, for consulting and other services and even testing
experimental drugs in people.
Merck & Co. and Eli Lilly & Co. also have announced plans to disclose payments for consulting, giving speeches and similar services.
That step came after two senators introduced the Physician Payments
Sunshine Act of 2009 to require such disclosures -- and after
revelations of astronomical industry payments to some doctors that were
not revealed to universities and hospitals that employ them. Despite a
number of such doctors being identified publicly, virtually none have
lost their job or faced other repercussions.

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