Kaiser Health News
Jay Hancock and Elizabeth Lucas April 30, 2018
Business looked challenging for Novo Nordisk at the end of 2016. As pressure mounted over the pharma giant’s soaring insulin prices, investors drove its stock down by a third on fears that policymakers would take action, limit prices and hurt profits.
Then things got worse. A Massachusetts law firm sued the company and two other pharma firms on behalf of patients, claiming that high insulin prices of hundreds of dollars a month forced diabetics to starve themselves to minimize their blood sugar while skimping on doses. At least five states began investigating insulin makers and their business partners.
As scrutiny rose, Novo Nordisk engaged in what analysts say is a time-honored response to public criticism. It aggressively ratcheted up spending to spread its influence in Washington and to have a louder say in the debates over drug prices.
The drugmaker’s political action committee spent $405,000 on federal campaign donations and other political outlays last year, more than in 2016 — an election year — and nearly double its allocation for 2015, data compiled by Kaiser Health News show.
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Thank You Mr Hancock, Ms Lucas and KHN.
Showing posts with label Pharma Payments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pharma Payments. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2018
Monday, April 28, 2014
Updated: Pfizer, Novartis And 3 Others Put Extra $1M Each into Q1 Lobbying
fiercepharma;
Updated: Pfizer, Novartis And 3 Others Put Extra $1M Each into Q1 Lobbying
April 24, 2014 | By Eric Palmer
If you were to draw an X where Big Pharma and politics cross, it would fall right over Washington, DC. And Big Pharma companies, like other corporate beings, spend millions to make their own mark on what happens there. In fact, a handful of companies spent $1 million more each in the first quarter of 2014 than in the previous quarter.
PhRMA actually tops the list. The organization, which is about being Big Pharma's voice in Washington, put out $4.680 million in Q1 2014, up from $4.050 in the final quarter of 2013, a $630,000 increase. And as a group, the 16 companies and PhRMA spent $30.878 million, up $5.847 million. Of the 16 companies on the list, 7 spent more than $2 million in the first three months of 2014: Pfizer, Novartis, Eli Lilly ($LLY), Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, Merck and Amgen ($AMGN). Ohers not so much. GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) reported $1.63 million used for lobbying compared to $421,000 laid out in the last quarter.
It was Amgen, and its assumed political influence, which made headlines last year, when in its fiscal cliff bill in January, Congress wrote a proviso shielding Sensipar and other oral treatments for kidney patients from Medicare price restraints for another two years. Sensipar is the dominant product in the category. According to reports at the time, Amgen lobbied hard and spent big to get the extension.
Some drugmakers' concerns are specific, like Amgen's, while others span much of the industry, like intellectual-property rights. The industry has turned to Washington to exert pressure on both India and Canada, which it believes have been ready to overturn patents on some of drugmakers' best-selling drugs.The industry has urged officials in Washington to threaten trade sanctions against both countries unless they reform their practices.
While most of the companies on the list upped their spends in the early part of the year, not all of them did. Five of the 15 spent less. Cutting back were Eli Lilly, Genentech, Novo Nordisk ($NVO), Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY) and Abbott Laboratories ($ABT).
- read the Political MoneyLine report in Roll Call
Related Articles:
Lawmakers lash out at Amgen-friendly legislation
Amgen's Sensipar scored pricing shield from Congress
U.S. lawmakers join Lilly's attacks on Canada's patent attitude
FDA Commissioner's India visit coincides with trade actions
Thank You fiercepharma and Mr Palmer.
Updated: Pfizer, Novartis And 3 Others Put Extra $1M Each into Q1 Lobbying
April 24, 2014 | By Eric Palmer
If you were to draw an X where Big Pharma and politics cross, it would fall right over Washington, DC. And Big Pharma companies, like other corporate beings, spend millions to make their own mark on what happens there. In fact, a handful of companies spent $1 million more each in the first quarter of 2014 than in the previous quarter.
Pfizer ($PFE), Novartis ($NVS), Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), Bayer and Merck ($MRK) all dug that much deeper into their pockets, according to a Political MoneyLine report in Roll Call. Pfizer spent the most, raising its lobbying spend to $3.19 million from $2.09 million in the previous quarter. But it is Novartis which saw the largest increase. It spent $2.58 million, up $1.66 million from the $920,000 spent in the previous quarter.
It was Amgen, and its assumed political influence, which made headlines last year, when in its fiscal cliff bill in January, Congress wrote a proviso shielding Sensipar and other oral treatments for kidney patients from Medicare price restraints for another two years. Sensipar is the dominant product in the category. According to reports at the time, Amgen lobbied hard and spent big to get the extension.
Some drugmakers' concerns are specific, like Amgen's, while others span much of the industry, like intellectual-property rights. The industry has turned to Washington to exert pressure on both India and Canada, which it believes have been ready to overturn patents on some of drugmakers' best-selling drugs.The industry has urged officials in Washington to threaten trade sanctions against both countries unless they reform their practices.
While most of the companies on the list upped their spends in the early part of the year, not all of them did. Five of the 15 spent less. Cutting back were Eli Lilly, Genentech, Novo Nordisk ($NVO), Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY) and Abbott Laboratories ($ABT).
- read the Political MoneyLine report in Roll Call
Related Articles:
Lawmakers lash out at Amgen-friendly legislation
Amgen's Sensipar scored pricing shield from Congress
U.S. lawmakers join Lilly's attacks on Canada's patent attitude
FDA Commissioner's India visit coincides with trade actions
Thank You fiercepharma and Mr Palmer.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Study: Pharma Payments Do Sway Doctor's Prescribing Habits
Fierce Pharma has;
Study: Pharma Payments Do Sway Doctor's Prescribing Habits
August 6, 2013 | By Tracy Staton
With the Physician Payments Sunshine Act now in effect, more drugmakers are collecting doctors' names and dollar figures. But for some people, there's still that nagging question--why? After all, doctors say they aren't unduly influenced by their financial relationships with drugmakers. And most doctors don't rack up hundreds of thousands in pharma payments.
But a new study shows that--surprise!--payments do influence doctors' behavior. Yes, the average amount that flows from pharma to physician is about $1,700 per. Still, doctors are swayed by free dinners and speaking fees, the study finds, with prescriptions rising along with payments.
According to the study, published by the Social Science Research Network, doctors who accepted free meals, speaking fees, consulting payments and so on from one drugmaker were more likely to prescribe that drugmaker's brand-name products--not only compared with a competing brand in the same category, but with cheap generic versions, too. Even cheap generics of that very brand-name product.
Consider Pfizer's ($PFE) Lipitor and AstraZeneca's ($AZN) Crestor. Using data compiled by ProPublica on doctor payments and Medicare Part D prescriptions, the researchers compared physicians' use of both drugs. They found that Pfizer payments were associated with an increase in Lipitor scripts, with larger payments leading to bigger increases. Ditto with AstraZeneca payments and Crestor prescriptions. "Moreover, we find that payments from either company reduce the fraction of generic statin alternatives prescribed," the study authors wrote.
Interestingly enough, men proved more than twice as sensitive to pharma payments as women were, the analysis found. "This confirms experimental and field evidence suggesting that women are more honest and less corruptible than men," the researchers wrote. (For what it's worth, that evidence comes from studies of political corruption.)
And as NPR's Shots blog points out, the data shows that doctors practicing in states where corruption is more common--such as Louisiana--were more likely to be swayed by payments from drug companies, compared with doctors from less corruption-prone states, such as Oregon.
- read the NPR blog post
- get the paper from SSRN
Related Articles:
Sunshine Act in today's pharma forecast as mandate takes effect
Drugmakers to open their doc-payment books in Europe
Merck, Lilly, Pfizer top $1B doc-payments list
ProPublica: Pharma's doc-payment disclosures top $2B
AARP, AFL-CIO and prominent docs to White House: Get us sunshine rules, stat
Thank You Ms. Staton and Fierce Pharma.
OK. $1,700 is average.
A guy in a bar asks a woman if she'd have sex with him for a Million Dollars. She says yes. He keeps dropping the price and she keeps saying yes until he gets to, . . . $1,699, . . . and she refuses.
"What kind of woman do you take me for?" she says.
"Madame, we've already established What kind of woman you are. All we're doing now is haggling over the price." he says.
http://psychroaches.blogspot.com/search?q=18C95
for $1,700.
Study: Pharma Payments Do Sway Doctor's Prescribing Habits
August 6, 2013 | By Tracy Staton
With the Physician Payments Sunshine Act now in effect, more drugmakers are collecting doctors' names and dollar figures. But for some people, there's still that nagging question--why? After all, doctors say they aren't unduly influenced by their financial relationships with drugmakers. And most doctors don't rack up hundreds of thousands in pharma payments.
But a new study shows that--surprise!--payments do influence doctors' behavior. Yes, the average amount that flows from pharma to physician is about $1,700 per. Still, doctors are swayed by free dinners and speaking fees, the study finds, with prescriptions rising along with payments.
According to the study, published by the Social Science Research Network, doctors who accepted free meals, speaking fees, consulting payments and so on from one drugmaker were more likely to prescribe that drugmaker's brand-name products--not only compared with a competing brand in the same category, but with cheap generic versions, too. Even cheap generics of that very brand-name product.
Consider Pfizer's ($PFE) Lipitor and AstraZeneca's ($AZN) Crestor. Using data compiled by ProPublica on doctor payments and Medicare Part D prescriptions, the researchers compared physicians' use of both drugs. They found that Pfizer payments were associated with an increase in Lipitor scripts, with larger payments leading to bigger increases. Ditto with AstraZeneca payments and Crestor prescriptions. "Moreover, we find that payments from either company reduce the fraction of generic statin alternatives prescribed," the study authors wrote.
Interestingly enough, men proved more than twice as sensitive to pharma payments as women were, the analysis found. "This confirms experimental and field evidence suggesting that women are more honest and less corruptible than men," the researchers wrote. (For what it's worth, that evidence comes from studies of political corruption.)
And as NPR's Shots blog points out, the data shows that doctors practicing in states where corruption is more common--such as Louisiana--were more likely to be swayed by payments from drug companies, compared with doctors from less corruption-prone states, such as Oregon.
- read the NPR blog post
- get the paper from SSRN
Related Articles:
Sunshine Act in today's pharma forecast as mandate takes effect
Drugmakers to open their doc-payment books in Europe
Merck, Lilly, Pfizer top $1B doc-payments list
ProPublica: Pharma's doc-payment disclosures top $2B
AARP, AFL-CIO and prominent docs to White House: Get us sunshine rules, stat
Thank You Ms. Staton and Fierce Pharma.
OK. $1,700 is average.
A guy in a bar asks a woman if she'd have sex with him for a Million Dollars. She says yes. He keeps dropping the price and she keeps saying yes until he gets to, . . . $1,699, . . . and she refuses.
"What kind of woman do you take me for?" she says.
"Madame, we've already established What kind of woman you are. All we're doing now is haggling over the price." he says.
http://psychroaches.blogspot.com/search?q=18C95
for $1,700.
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