“There is no evidence that drug industry payments influence physician practice”
Got to love to read papers where "No one has ever discussed X" when I've published at least 12 papers on X in the past eight years.
Aaron Mitchell
@thewonkologist.bsky.social
1103 Followers
316 Following
Medical oncologist and health services researcher. Focusing on health care costs, physician-industry COI, and oncology reimbursement reform. Opinions mine.
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Exactly
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It is also worth noting that even a few additional months' worth of drug sales can mean millions of dollars in revenue. Why stop promotion before someone (FDA) makes you?
5/
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In at least 1 case, the answer seems to be that the company is still pursuing additional approvals.
This drug is belantamab mafodotin (Blenrep). Notably, Blenrep was also one of the most heavily-promoted drugs on social media, which we also recently studied.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 4/
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During the months between trial results and drug withdrawal, payments continued. In some cases, $10Ks per month. Leading to the questions:
- Why would companies continue promotion for a failed drug?
- Given that they knew trial results before public release, why not stop payments even sooner?
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Maryam Mooghali, @reshmagar.bsky.social, Ayman Mohammed @yalecrrit.bsky.social and I studied industry payments to doctors (free meals, consulting fees, etc.) after a drug's confirmatory trial failed.
For the most part, after drugs were pulled from the market, payments stopped.
But...
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Cancer drugs with Accelerated Approval have to undergo confirmatory clinical trials.
What happens when the confirmatory trial fails, showing no clinical benefit? Does the manufacturer stop promoting the drug to doctors?
We took a look:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40855611/ 1/
Industry promotion of oncology drugs with accelerated approval that failed confirmatory trials - PubMed
Industry payments to physicians influence prescribing, raising concern for drugs granted accelerated approval that failed confirmatory studies. We measured industry payments for oncology drugs granted...
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I have to say, probably my least favorite part of my job as an MD is having to get ahold of other MDs at other offices to discuss patient care.
The likelihood of ever getting a returned call unacceptably low. This is an area where need to collectively do better.
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“Physicians receiving payments were more likely to prescribe the company's drugs, with a stronger association for payments that were larger, sustained and recent.”
New work on bribes to Rx multiple sclerosis drugs by Sayed, @reshmagar.bsky.social @jsross119.bsky.social
Industry payments to US neurologists related to multiple sclerosis drugs and prescribing (2015-2019): a retrospective cohort study - PubMed
Nearly 80% of neurologists prescribing MS drugs received at least one industry payment, with higher volume prescribers being more likely to receive payments. Physicians receiving payments were more li...
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The U.S. spends far more on prescription drugs than other countries — and one reason is that brand-name manufacturers use several strategies to extend market exclusivity beyond key patents and delay generic entry, including obtaining overlapping thickets of patents.
