Free pens and pizza lunches. Sponsored conferences and compromised medical education. Courtesy golf and unaffordable holidays. Thought leaders and ghost writers. These are the trappings of doctors and drug companies being entwined in an embrace of avarice and excess, an embrace that distorts medical information and patient care. An article in this theme issue of the BMJ identifies 16 ways in wh...

Patents on many blockbuster drugs will expire in the near future, opening up the doorways for generic production. Brandname drug companies lose an estimated half of their U.S. sales during the first six months of generic production alone. In an effort to forestall large sales declines, some brand-name pharmaceutical companies are scrambling to delay generic production. One measure brand-name ph...

IMPORTANCE Medical communication companies (MCCs) are among the most significant health care stakeholders, supported mainly by drug and device companies. How MCCs share or protect physicians' personal data requires greater transparency. OBJECTIVE To explore the financial relationships between MCCs and drug and device companies, to describe the characteristics of the large MCCs, and to explore...

OBJECTIVES Unethical drug promotion is a common problem worldwide. In, Nepal, there is limited vigilance on the quality of information supplied by the drug companies to the doctors. The objectives of this study were to analyze the promotional materials provided by the drug companies as per WHO ethical criteria for medicinal drug promotion. METHODS Promotional materials present in the Drug Inf...

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most productive and competitive industries in the world. Many of the large pharmaceutical companies (often termed ‘Big Pharma’) base their primary operations in the USA and maintain extensive facilities in countries around the world. Pharmaceutical research is, therefore, an activity of global importance. The intensely competitive and global nature of B...

Waxman report, which also touches on the pre-emption matter. The report issued by Representative Waxman’s House Oversight and Invest igations Committee in late October argued that the FDA had recently restricted CBE authority twice—one time as part of the 2006 Physician Labeling Rule and a second time in a CBE rule issued in August 2008. The Waxman report was controversial because it said that ...

Pharmaceutical companies have long focused their marketing strategies on getting doctors to write more prescriptions. But they lose billions in potential sales when patients do not take their prescribed drugs. Getting patients to "adhere" to drug therapies that have unpleasant side effects and questionable efficacy requires more than mere ad campaigns urging patients to talk to their doctors. I...