Massachusetts Group Launches Campaign To Regulate Drug Maker Marketing

The newly formed Massachusetts Prescription Reform Coalition on Thursday announced an effort to curb pharmaceutical industry marketing in an attempt to bring down drug costs and health spending, the Boston Globe reports. The group contends that rapid drug spending growth is putting Massachusetts' health care law in jeopardy and hindering other initiatives to expand health insurance in the state.

The coalition has three objectives:
Prohibit gifts from drug makers to health care professionals who prescribe drugs;

Ban data-mining; and

Create a drug education program to provide unbiased information to physicians.The coalition was created by Health Care for All, and its members include AARP, the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, the American Heart Association, the American Stroke Association, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Neighborhood Health Plan.

Stephen Mulloney, director of policy and public affairs for the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, said, "This campaign seems to be less about good public policy and more about animosity toward the biopharmaceutical industry." He added that the coalition's efforts could hurt some Massachusetts biotech companies (Krasner, Boston Globe, 1/17).


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