Emails Show Drug Company Used Third-Party Medical Groups to Influence Regulators, Undercut Rivals

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/e-mails-show-drug-company-used-third-party-medical-groups-to-influence-regu



Brand-name drug manufacturers have long used controversial tactics <1> to keep their generic competitors off the market, but a new report by the Senate Finance Committee sheds light on how one firm leveraged hidden financial ties with reputable medical groups to undermine its generic rivals.

Facing what it called “an imminent threat <2>” to its brand-name blood thinner Lovenox, pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis launched an advocacy campaign to influence the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to delay generic competitors, according to the report. It did so by contacting medical societies and researchers, urging them to write in to the FDA—or in one case, to write an advertorial for the Wall Street Journal—to raise safety concerns about generics.

The medical groups—the Society of Hospital Medicine and the North American Thrombrosis Forum—each received more than $2.3 million from Sanofi between 2007 and 2010. A Duke University researcher who wrote the FDA received more than $260,000. None of the letters mentioned financial ties to Sanofi. (The Journal first reported on the two groups’ letters <3> to the FDA last year, sparking the Senate investigation.)

ProPublica has reported on the ways that drug and device makers have sought to influence professional medical societies <4> and health advocacy groups <5> through millions in donations and advertising revenue at conferences. And while we’ve repeatedly raised questions about how the corporate cash influences these groups, there are limits to what reporters can expose about all that happens behind the scenes.

More at the link --