AZ details US doctor payments
pharmafile | August 24, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | AstraZeneca, industry reputation, payments
AstraZeneca is shining a light on its activities in the US, disclosing for the first time how much it pays to healthcare professionals and institutions.
The company has set up a searchable database on its US website which includes details of consulting and speaker fees, meals and travel, some educational items, research payments, royalties, licence fees and ownership and investment interests.
This represents the shape of things to come for pharma companies operating in the UK: under the revised ABPI Code of Practice, they will also be obliged to declare doctor payments from 2013.
AstraZeneca is keen to talk up its commitment to transparency, with the company’s US compliance officer, Marie Martino, saying the disclosure of these payments “expands on a major initiative announced three years ago to provide greater public visibility into how we do business”.
However, the company also accepts that the new reporting “meets the requirements of our April 2010 corporate integrity agreement with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the US Department of Health and Human Services”.
This deals with the fall-out from the high profile case in which AstraZeneca promoted its antipsychotic treatment Seroquel between January 2001 and December 2006 for uses that were not approved by the FDA.
It was also alleged that AstraZeneca had offered and paid illegal remuneration to doctors in connection with services rendered relating to the unapproved uses of Seroquel.
The furore left the company with a bill for $520 million with interest, plus the five-year integrity agreement with the OIG, as well as some bridges to build in a bid to restore its reputation.
And it is not the only one: Lilly released details of its payments to doctors and healthcare organisations in the US earlier this year as part of a 2009 settlement for US marketing violations – in this case, off-label promotion of Lilly’s own antipsychotic drug Zyprexa.
Both companies are some way behind GlaxoSmithKline, which has been publishing details of its payments to US doctors each quarter since 2009.
The US government’s Sunshine Act, set to come into force by 2013, will mean all pharma companies in the country will have to do the same thing.
Adam Hill
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