Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14327

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Hollmer M.
Eli Lilly CEO says gifts ban could drive drug research from Massachusetts
Boston Business Journal 2008 Sep 19
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2008/09/15/daily78.html

Full text:

The head of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. on Friday blasted a new law governing how drug companies market to physicians, calling it a bad move that will hamper innovation and force companies to reconsider expanding in Massachusetts.

“Life sciences investment will be scared away,” said Eli Lilly president and CEO John Lechleiter, who spoke to the Associated Industries of Massachusetts Executive Forum at the Westin Waltham.

In a broader speech about the future of life sciences innovation, Lechleiter singled out the new law signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in August as having “the potential not only to stifle clinical research in Massachusetts, but also to complicate a key part of market access: the ability to share information.”

The law gives the Department of Public Health the authority to craft regulations restricting how pharmaceutical companies market their drugs to physicians, with an initial start on Jan. 1.

But Lechleiter, in his remarks, said that doctors need to learn about innovations from pharmaceutical companies and that they deserved to be compensated by those companies “for their valuable time.”

While those regulations are still being crafted, he said that the law has the potential to “subject doctors, hospitals and academic institutions to complex financial disclosure requirements about payments for clinical research.”

The possibility of significantly more bureaucracy could significantly hamper the state’s life sciences research engine, Lechleiter said, threatening the more than 5,600 clinical trials now underway in Massachusetts.

“Such work is the backbone of research and development in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals,” he said. “And it’s about to get a whole lot more difficult in this state, which almost certainly means that less of this important work will take place here in the future.”

Lechleiter has said that the law will impact where the company locates its next major facility. Massachusetts is a possible site, he has said, though Eli Lilly is looking at a number of different options.

The company doesn’t have a specific presence in the Bay State, but it employs about 175 researchers with various organizations in Massachusetts including

Eli Lilly, which is based in Indiana, funded nearly $64 million in research/clinical grants in Massachusetts in 2006.