Rewarding doctors for prescribing medicine is a long-standing practice among many—if not most--pharmaceutical companies. The rewards consist of payments for consulting services and for participating in a speakers’ bureau. For the most part, however, the doctors don’t consult; neither do they give speeches at conferences.
Recently, former employees of Biogen, which makes drugs for
multiple sclerosis, sued the company for just that sort of wrongdoing. Nearly
half of the doctors who wrote more than 1000 prescriptions per year for MS
medications received consulting payments from Biogen. Biogen settled the case
for $900 million.
Pharmaceutical companies want you think that the high cost
of the drugs is necessary to pay for the costs of drug discovery. But, according
to the NEJM, many pharmaceutical firms spend as much or more on sales and
marketing as they do on research. Manufacturers paid doctors nearly $1 billion
to be consultants or speakers in 2016. Some of these funds could instead be put
toward drug discovery and could help cover any shortfalls that may occur as a
result of the new legislation (Inflation Reduction Act) that allows the federal
government to negotiate the prices it pays for certain medications.
Negotiations on drug prices refer only to Medicare, of
course. What about everybody else?
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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