The new, weaker language of the Senate bill was endorsed by Eli Lilly and Co., maker of impotence drug Cialis and schizophrenic disorder drug Zyprexa. Legislature said they hope the support will spur other companies to back the bill, which had previously required all gifts valued over $25 be reported.
Lavish invests to doctors from industry — drifting from golf vacations to pricey dinners — have come vulnerable from lawmakers for charming physicians’ prescribing habits. The industry says such gestures are part of its doctor education, but critics say they taint independent decision-making.
“Transparentness brings about answerability and profits everyone, consumers most of all,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a statement. Grassley is sponsoring the bill with Democrat Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin.
“We applaud Eli Lilly for endorsing transparency and hope the rest of the pharmaceutic industry follows their lead,” Kohl said.
But some consumer groups lamented the changes.
“It is absolutely unacceptable. The whole idea of the registry is it allows a gift by gift annotating,” said Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen’s health research unit, who testified at an earlier hearing on the topic.
Penalisations for drug and devicemakers in the retooled bill also were weakened to fines of between $1,000 and $50,000 for each assault, concording both Senate offices. The earlier marriage offer, released last year, set penalties from $10,000 to $100,000 per infraction.
“Penalizations need to be significant differently these companies will treat it as a cost of doing business,” Lurie said.
The new version also pushes back when the bill would go into effect, from 2008 to 2011.
Eli Lilly said it is backing the revised bill in a bid to recapture trust of doctors and patients.
“Any good partnership has to have trust. And a lot of that trust has been degenerating over time,” said Jack Harris, vice president of the U.S. medical division at Lilly.
The retooled Senate bill also includes several changes sought by industry, including having the federal law preempt state laws that require disclosure of gifts.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group for big drugmakers, had not taken a position when the first bill was announced. In a statement on Tuesday, it said it hopes any legislation not “inadvertently imply that these transactions are inappropriate.”
The group also is worried about the burden graded on doctors and societies to report, concording to the statement.
The United States Senate bill would require drug and device makers to submit an annual report about their gifts to the Fed government, which would post it on the Internet.
It was unclear if similar legislation would be introduced in the House.
Last year, five medical device makers settled a U.S. Justice Department investigating over gifts and payment practices. Four of them — Zimmer Holdings Inc, Johnson & Johnson’s DuPuy Orthopedics, Smith & Nephew and Biomet Inc — agreed to pay a combined $311 million as part of the settlement. The fifth company, Stryker Corp,agreed to change its practices and was not fined.
