May 16, 2013 – The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is likely “to find itself the target of a First Amendment lawsuit by affected parties” if it does not consider medical textbooks to be “educational materials that directly benefit patients” which are excluded from a reporting requirement under the final rules implementing the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, according to a May 15 letter to CMS from the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF).
In its letter (CMS Textbook Policy), WLF asks CMS to delay application of reporting requirements to medical textbooks until it has had an opportunity to examine the First Amendment implications of including these items as “transfers of value” from manufacturers to doctors.
Coalition for Healthcare Communication (CHC) Executive Director John Kamp remarked that the WLF letter “is strong, balanced, nuanced and likely to be effective. Indeed, if WLF convinces CMS to reverse itself on textbooks, the same reasoning applies to journal supplements, reprints and Website publications that are distributed with company support.”
Specifically, WLF contends the following in its letter:
- The distribution of medical textbooks is speech protected by the First Amendment;
- Although CMS is not banning speech, it is substantially burdening speech (and such burdens are subject to First Amendment constraints);
- The Sunshine final rule’s disclosure requirement imposes a substantial burden on the right to speak by distributing medical textbooks;
- Application of the Sunshine Act to medical textbooks does not serve any substantial government interests; and
- CMS can avoid First Amendment difficulties by construing the Act as inapplicable to medical textbooks.
“Applying the reporting requirements to medical textbooks would constitute a serious infringement on the First Amendment rights of pharmaceutical companies to disseminate medical texts and the First Amendment rights of doctors to receive such information,” WLF Chief Counsel Richard A. Samp wrote in the letter to CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that disclosure requirements of this sort [imposed by the final rule] are subject to ‘exacting scrutiny’ and can pass muster under the First Amendment only if shown to serve important government interests that outweigh the burdens they impose on speakers,” the letter states.
The WLF also states that the burden of reporting and doctors’ concerns about being included on a list of those receiving payments from drug companies will cause doctors to decline offers of medical textbooks and cause companies to cease disseminating them. Because medical textbooks communicate truthful information that helps doctors treat patients, the WLF asserts that they are fully protected by the First Amendment, as demonstrated by multiple U.S. Supreme Court decisions. “By all accounts, medical textbooks supplied by drug companies to doctors ‘directly benefit patients’ – doctors regularly use information gleaned from the textbooks in their treatment of patients,” according to the WLF.
As further evidence that medical textbooks constitute protected speech under the First Amendment, the WLF states that its 1998 lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) resulted in the FDA being subject to a permanent injunction limiting FDA authority to suppress manufacturer dissemination of medical textbooks discussing off-label uses of their FDA-approved products.
“There is little evidence that Congress intended to single out textbook dissemination and other expressive activities for special disapprobation, but the effect of the Act (as interpreted by CMS) is to burden this expressive activity to such an extent that much of the activity will cease,” the WLF letter states. Samp concludes the letter by stating that “in light of the grave constitutional issues raised by CMS’s rule, courts will not defer to CMS’s reading of the Act … even if they deem it a plausible reading,” and advises CMS to reconsider and allow these educational materials to be excluded from reporting requirements.
“Exempting these as educational items not only makes sense under the Sunshine Act, it makes great public policy sense,” CHC’s Kamp said. “Informing doctors about the latest science and practice guidelines drives improved patient care. Everyone can salute that result.”
May 14, 2013 — In a Medical Marketing and Media (MMM) column posted May 1, Coalition for Healthcare Communication Executive Director John Kamp said that “although the FDA has been able to cling for decades to the idea that the approved label constitutes virtually the only truth about an approved product, good common sense and the First Amendment are closing in on the traditional regulatory scheme.” Kamp asserts in MMM that “the regulation of drug communication and marketing is on the brink of changes that will enable patients and doctors to garner valuable information from companies about the safe, effective and economically efficient use of drugs, especially for off-label uses.”
To read the full article, go to: http://www.mmm-online.com/off-label-on-the-table/article/290961/
May 6, 2013 — With Sunshine Act reporting slated to begin in less than three months, it is sobering to note that many physicians and investigators still are unaware of the regulation, a majority are not in favor of making information about physician-industry financial relationships available to the public, and a small percentage would consider not engaging in clinical trials to avoid a perception that they are too involved with one sponsor.
A recent study conducted by Industry Standard Research (ISR), “Sunshine Act: Pharma Impact – Changes in U.S. Physician Behavior,” found that physicians are worried that the Sunshine Act will have a negative effect on their practice. ISR surveyed physicians and other stakeholders affected by the Sunshine Act. Of 103 physician respondents, 74 percent said they were not in favor of sharing these data; 18 percent of the 100 investigators surveyed said they would stop participating in some clinical trials if they started to do “too many” trials for one sponsor, as reported in a recent article in Policy and Medicine (http://www.policymed.com/2013/05/physician-payment-sunshine-act-principal-investigators-and-primary-care-physicians-largely-unaware-of-regulation-1.html).
“If physicians are concerned that interacting with the pharmaceuticals industry has a negative connotation, there could be a chilling effect on those relationships, which are vital to the public health,” said Coalition for Healthcare Communication Executive Director John Kamp. “The Sunshine Act is supposed to lend transparency to these relationships, not undermine them.”
Although the report states that “few physicians believe the rule will have an impact on how they treat patients,” 38 percent of physicians and surveyed say that they are not at all familiar with the Sunshine Act and 23 percent of principal investigators surveyed state that they have never heard of the Sunshine Act.
As part of the study, ISR researchers evaluated physicians’ frequency of use and the value they place on specific communications channels, as well as which channels might be less likely to be used following Sunshine Act implementation. “While the channel expected to be impacted most significantly is ‘group/practice-level detail sessions’ where doctors and their staff typically receives free lunches, we did see a 12-percent drop in the level of interaction expected across all ‘in-person’ activities,” said Andrew Schafer, ISR president.
Indeed, the report states that the Sunshine Act “will have a dramatic impact on the ability of pharma sales representatives to frequently detail physicians, both one-on-one and in a group setting.” The report adds that although 47 percent of physicians indicated that they participate in a group detail on a weekly basis currently, only 30 percent said they plan to continue this practice after the Sunshine Act requirements kick in.
Interestingly, 71 percent of physician respondents stated that they expect pharmaceutical companies to inform them of the value of a service or benefit prior to it being offered to them. However, even though physicians are worried about the potential negative publicity surrounding their interaction with pharma companies, they “mention that they use pharma sales representatives as a key source of information for new medicines and treatments.” One physician quoted in the report said the Sunshine Act rules “will reduce availability to new information about existing and new products.”
“These findings support the fact that industry needs to do all it can to ensure that context regarding the industry-physician relationship is provided and included in press reports about the data that ultimately will be made public,” Kamp said. “The Coalition raised this issue in comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and we cannot stress enough that getting this point across will make a huge difference in the public’s perception of this information. We have to make clear that these relationships are crucial to keeping physicians informed and to ensuring that patients receive the most effective treatments for their conditions.”
For details on the ISR survey report, go to: http://isrreports.com/industry-reports/sunshine-act-pharma-impact-changes-in-us-physician-behavior
April 29, 2013 – Although the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) has made great strides to protect consumers’ privacy online – which include its industry Self-regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising and its “Your Ad Choices” public education campaign – the Senate Commerce Committee appears to be underwhelmed by companies’ self-regulation efforts and the DAA’s promise to honor “Do Not Track” requests from consumers.
“Consumers are still waiting for these Do Not Track standards. Advertisers are continuing to ignore Do Not Track headers and consumers’ requests for privacy,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, at an April 24 hearing: “A Status Update on the Development of Voluntary Do-Not-Track Standards.”
“I have long expressed skepticism about the ability – or willingness – of companies to regulate themselves on behalf of consumers when it affects their bottom line,” Rockefeller said. “I disclose a generally troubling feeling I have about the nature of corporations around the chance to make money when people don’t know” what information is being collected about them, he continued.
DAA Self-regulatory Program Status
The DAA’s program is designed to provide choice to consumers regarding how they want their privacy protected. “The DAA’s efforts have helped to ensure that consumers will continue to have preferences regarding which ads they wish to see using a one-button mechanism,” said Coalition for Healthcare Communication Executive Director John Kamp. “But clearly, there is still more work to be done and stakeholders have to find common ground to move forward successfully.”
In February 2012, the DAA announced that it would begin work to recognize browser-based choices with a set of tools by which consumers could express their preferences under the DAA principles. Since then, two browser companies, Microsoft and Mozilla, have announced plans to install Do Not Track features that would automatically default to full protection without consumers having to make a choice.
DAA Managing Director Lou Mastria testified before the Senate committee that these features undermine the industry agreement made in February 2012, because they remove consumer choice – a linchpin in the agreement – from the equation.
In March 2012, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) called on industry to step up self-regulatory practices or live with Congress stepping in. At the recent American Advertising Federation annual advertising day on Capitol Hill, FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez stated that the advertising industry should work with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to develop a browser-based solution and praised Microsoft and Mozilla for their efforts, so it appears that support for voluntary programs may be wavering.
Although Harvey Anderson, Mozilla Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs, told the committee that “industry has not moved forward quickly enough,” and that “the efficacy of the Ad Choice program remains questionable,” he did also state that “the work of the DAA should be acknowledged.”
Mastria told the committee that the DAA self-regulatory program protects consumers while also allowing them access to ad-supported content, adding that changes to the current paradigm would harm small publishers while also “chilling innovation.” He said that the DAA “is a solution provider” and the only entity that actually delivers choice for consumers.
“Today, the DAA calls on all stakeholders, including the FTC, W3C, Microsoft and Mozilla to honor the terms of the [February 2012] announcement and remove impediments that are preventing implementation of browser-driven choice for consumers,” Mastria said.
Is Legislation Needed?
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked whether Congress should move forward with legislation in this area, because “when voluntary agreements fail to provide compliance, that’s the classic instance where a law is needed.” Mastria replied that “legislative or technological fiats are not necessarily what the Internet needs. A nimble, self-regulatory approach [like DAA’s] is exactly the kind of thing that fosters consumer trust while protecting privacy.”
He later added that the DAA program delivers “the very mechanisms” that are in Do Not Track legislation (DNT2013) introduced Feb. 28 by Rockefeller and Blumenthal. This legislation would:
- Create a universal legal obligation for all online companies to honor consumer choice when consumers do not want anyone to collect information about their online activities;
- Allow the FTC to pursue enforcement action against any company that does not honor this request by consumers;
- Allow companies, upon consumer requests to not be tracked, to collect only the information that is necessary for the Web site or online service to function and be effective, but then place a legal obligation on the online company to destroy or make anonymous the information after it is no longer needed.
“Industry needs to strongly advocate for – and deliver on – its promise to implement the levels of online privacy protection that the public is seeking,” Kamp said. “For the DAA’s program to thrive, consensus on how the program will work for all stakeholders is key.”
April 4, 2013 – A new White Paper, “FDA Communications Oversight in a Digital Era,” issued April 2 by Eye on FDA/Fleishman-Hillard, is based on analysis of a database of FDA/Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) enforcement letters, and takes a close look at how, in the absence of FDA guidance on digital communications and social media, the agency enforces alleged violations in these media.
“Lacking any sort of formal guidance from the agency, the only peek into FDA’s point of view is to examine enforcement patterns,” according to Mark Senak, Eye on FDA author and Senior Vice President & Partner, Fleishman-Hillard. For the period of 2008-2012, Senak set out to determine how violations by digital communications properties compared to violations by traditional (non-digital) communications vehicles.
“Given the lack of guidance by the FDA, an examination of regulatory action letters over the period of time during which social media became prominent could provide oversight into (1) whether digital communications led to a change in regulatory actions and (2) potential agency points of view derived from action letters involving social media,” the White Paper states.
Of the 173 letters sent by OPDP during this time period, 26 percent involved the issuance of a Warning Letter and 74 percent were Notices of Violation. Of the 45 Warning Letters issued, only 12 cited digital communications vehicles, the report states, and only a single enforcement letter has been issued regarding a social media platform. In that letter, it was the nature of the social media mechanism that brought about the violation, the author notes.
“As more and more people utilize digital and social media to get healthcare information, getting information about the regulatory parameters in which industry can operate is extremely important,” said John Kamp, Executive Director of the Coalition for Healthcare Communication. “There are still more questions than answers, but this paper sheds some important light onto the patterns of enforcement of digital over non-digital communications.”
For full results and analysis, go to: http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2013/04/some-digital-and-social-media-guidance-fda-regulation-of-pharma-communications-in-a-digital-era-a-white-paper.html
April 4, 2013 — Headlines run by news outlets regarding the status of industry-physician relationships rarely focus on the benefits of those relationships, according to an April 3 article in Policy and Medicine. Instead, “news outlets are continuing their misleading headlines and stories regarding physician-industry collaboration over the last few weeks by relying on the recently updated payment
data posted by ProPublica and its Dollars for Docs campaign,” the article states. It outlines news coverage in five states from news organizations that used the Dollars for Docs database as the basis for their stories.
“Focusing on the negatives and ignoring the positives of industry-physician relationships is both misleading and detrimental to the public health,” said Coalition for Healthcare Communication Executive Director John Kamp. “The public and the press need to be aware that without these important and necessary collaborations, healthcare innovation and patient quality of life would most certainly suffer.”
To read the full story, go to: http://www.policymed.com/2013/04/physician-payment-sunshine-propublica-database-leads-with-disparaging-headlines.html
April 1, 2013 – By John Kamp, Executive Director, Coalition for Healthcare Communication
While not directly about communication and marketing, last week’s oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court in FTC v. Actavis regarding ANDROGEL could create a significant bottom line hit to our businesses. A decision against pharma would further shorten the patent protection period on many branded drugs.
Here is a quick summary of the important legal and practical issues and what to watch for as the decision moves to Congress.
1. If the Supreme Court agrees with the Federal Trade Commission that “pay for delay” settlements are presumably illegal, they will nearly halt.
2. The Supreme Court is not deciding here what the Constitution means – where they have final authority – but only is deciding what the current commercial statutes require. Even if the Supreme Court agrees with pharma that such settlements are presumed valid under the existing antitrust and competition laws, Congress could invalidate that presumption by changing the law. Three such proposals already have been introduced.
3. The legal struggle is over three legal principles. Laws favor all three – patent protection, settlements over litigation, and vigorous competition. There are no easy choices here for the Supreme Court.
4. The biopharma industry seems to have the legal advantage. The FTC has struggled for more than a decade just to get this case to the Supreme Court and has lost more challenges on the way than it has won. The law supports settlements over litigation, even in antitrust cases. Further, one Justice recused himself, requiring the FTC to get five votes out of eight to prevail.
5. Also, Justice Kennedy, often seen as the swing vote, suggested during oral arguments that if Congress made a drafting mistake enabling these settlements in the Hatch-Waxman statute upon which the decision rests, it is up to Congress, not the courts, to change the law.
6. However, the FTC argued vigorously that the “pay for delay” drug patent settlements create extraordinary profits for the private companies. Further, it argued, these harm consumers much more than in any other antitrust settlement situation. The FTC asserted that the settlements create a legal anomaly whereby the generic challenger can make more money by settling than by winning and marketing the generic product. That’s because the settlement protects the monopoly pricing rather than speeding competition and lower prices to consumers.
7. Pharma faced tough questioning from skeptical judges, but so did the government. There is a good chance that the Supreme Court will support settlements in its decision, but either way, Congress can change the Hatch-Waxman statute to disfavor them.
8. Meanwhile, the populist policy and politics favors drug cost savings, especially in the face of escalating healthcare costs and the need to control the growing deficit. Although the law seems to favor pharma, especially with the more conservative justices, the politics of less expensive drugs may be tougher, especially as the case moves to Congress.
9. Don’t count the industry out yet. Biopharma and device companies have an unusual ally in this fight: generic drug companies and their associations. Also, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and its allies have had some recent success reminding Congress that innovative drugs require patent protection and the profits that brings
to rebuild drug pipelines and enable the advance of modern medicine. Laws flying in the face of that common sense argument are not slam-dunks.
Stay tuned.
March 22, 2013 – Although spending on drug promotion has declined in recent years, 2013 could be a pivotal year for the drug industry and its marketing partners. New legislative authority has spured an already energized FDA drug approval staff to focus on novel drugs. The new program, giving prioity for agents in critical areas, builds on recent progress and could signal “the beginning of a new era in drug approvals,” said Coalition for Healthcare Communication Executive Director John Kamp. “Such new drugs are great for patients and give industry new reason to energize flagging marketing programs.”
Speaking March 19 at the Drug Information Association’s Medical and Scientific Communications 2013 Annual Forum held in Chandler, Ariz., Kamp told attendees that in addition to the new drug approvals program recently adopted by the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), the FDA Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) provides incentives for breakthough products and antibiotics. These augment the biosimilar approval pathway created in the Affordable Care Act.
“It is not surprising that drug promotion rates declined in recent years as approvals slowed down,” Kamp said. “But current upward approval trends — including a recent record of 39 approvals in 2112 — combined with the CDER program to speed the approval of breakthrough products, makes it nearly certain that marketing opportunities will increase in 2013. While most of the new products are speciality products, not the blockbusters of the past, they are new products nonetheless and many will grow into substantial markets.”
But the recent numbers published by PLOS tell a different story over the past several years. The study, “Promotion of Prescription Drugs to Consumers and Providers, 2001-2010,” which was released March 4, states that a number of factors appear to have had an impact on drug promotion, which peaked in 2004 at $36.1 billion and sank to $27.7 billion by 2010. Its authors propose that those factors include a slowdown in new drug introductions, changes in the pharmaceutical pipeline, patent expiry for blockbuster drugs, and a greater number of approved biologics.
Spending on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising dropped from nearly $6 billion in 2006 to $4.4 billion in 2010, the study states. “During this period, television accounted for a decreasing proportion of all DTCA, declining from 62% in 2001 to 54% by 2010. Print DTCA increased 84% 2001-2006, but then declined 24% by 2010. In 2010, internet promotion accounted for less than 5% of overall consumer promotion,” according to the study summary.
“Manufacturers of branded pharmaceuticals continue to expend considerable sums on promotion to consumers and providers,” the PLOS study concludes. “However, in the context of marketplace changes, firms are decreasing spending but changing little about how expenditures are allocated across types of promotion.”
Kamp asserted that new drug development and approval initiatives will help reverse the decline in approvals that industry has seen in the past several years. For example, with FDASIA codifying accelerated approvals, innovative drugs have a better chance of being approved in a timely manner. Further, “breakthrough therapies” – those that show extraordinary clinical effectiveness – have access to “hyper fast” development, he said. And, the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now Act (GAIN Act) provides five additional years of patent protection for qualified agents targeting priority infections.
“Add these to priority treatment for rare disease drug applications and for pediatric drugs, and the numbers surely will go up,” Kamp predicted. He also pointed out that during the past two years, FDA new drug approvals have increased from where they stood in 2010. [Editor’s note: The recent study did not tabulate spending data after 2010.]
Kamp described the new approval system – known as “The Program” – as including the following features:
- Longer review cycles, but faster review times;
- Better meetings, including outside consultants that will report on system
- More late-cycle meetings to avoid “surprises” to drug sponsors;
- Fewer, “less exciting” Advisory Committee meetings; and
- Fewer late-cycle “complete response letters” and demands for new studies.
How all of the new approval system changes will stack up against some of the current market challenges remains to be seen, but, Kamp told DIA Forum attendees, “the greater number of approvals for new drugs that we saw in 2012 – with even more new drug approvals likely in 2013 – is most definitely an encouraging trend.”
March 19, 2013 – Although the FDA has not yet issued its long-awaited social media guidance for the biopharma industry, whatever guidelines it drafts on this topic are likely to be informed by the staff guidance document issued last week by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC’s new guidance, “.com Disclosures,” revises an FTC document issued in 2000 and, essentially, advises advertisers that online ad claims must be “clear and conspicuous” and that it is the message, not the medium that defines compliant ads. According to the guidance, “cyberspace is not without boundaries, and deception is unlawful no matter what the medium.”
“The FTC has led the way on these issues and continues to do so. Clearly, the FDA will recognize the leadership here and likely move forward similarly. I’m optimistic that we will see similar guidance soon from FDA’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion,” noted John Kamp, Executive Director, Coalition for Healthcare Communication.
The updated FTC guidance emphasizes that consumer protection laws apply equally to marketers across all media, “whether delivered on a desktop computer, a mobile device, or more traditional media such as television, radio, or print,” according to an FTC press release. The FTC stated that if disclosures are needed to prevent an online ad claim from being deceptive or unfair, they must ensure that these disclosures are clear and conspicuous “on all devices and platforms that consumers may use to view the ad.”
As an article in The Wall Street Journal noted, “That means making room for full disclosure even in a 140-character tweet on Twitter. The agency suggested that marketers could flag Twitter ads by including ‘Ad:’ (three characters) at the beginning of the post or the word ‘sponsored’ (nine characters).”[1] The FTC also clarified in the new guidance that disclosures should be “as close as possible” to the relevant claim,” which is a revision from the 2000 guidance, which called for disclosures to be “near, and when possible, on the same screen.”
Indeed, when practical, the FTC would like advertisers to incorporate relevant limitations and qualifying information into the underlying claim, rather than have a separate disclosure qualifying the claim. Where that is not possible, the agency continued to caution advertisers that they should avoid using hyperlinks
for disclosures and that “required disclosures about serious health and safety issues are unlikely to be effective when accessible only through a hyperlink.”
The FTC’s hyperlink restrictions could very likely be adopted by the FDA. Industry attorney Arnie Friede, a former FDA associate chief counsel, told Pharmalot.com that “the FDA can certainly hang its hat on this language to say that even the FTC rejects disclosures via hyperlink of important health and safety information, e.g., ‘fair balance’ information.”[2]
The FTC also asks marketers to avoid “conveying such disclosures through pop-ups, because they are often blocked” and states that if a disclosure is necessary to prevent an advertisement from being deceptive, unfair or otherwise violative of a Commission rule, and it is not possible to make the disclosure clearly and conspicuously, “then that ad should not be disseminated. This means that if a particular platform does not provide an opportunity to make clear and conspicuous disclosures, then that platform should not be used to disseminate advertisements that require disclosures.”
In the final analysis, the FTC concludes, “the ultimate test is whether the information intended to be disclosed is actually conveyed to consumers.”
[1] Yadron, Danny and Ovide, Shira; “FTC Says Tweet Ads Need Some Fine Print,”
The Wall Street Journal (March 12, 2013)
[2] Silverman, Ed; “Will FDA Emulate FTC Online Ad Guidance?” Pharmalot.com (March 13, 2013).
March 11, 2013 – Healthcare industry collaborations with physicians and researchers have “been at the heart of most of the advances in U.S. healthcare over the past several decades” and drive “medical innovation, meaningful health outcome improvements, and economic growth for our nation,” according to a consortium of stakeholders working together as the National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation (NDHI).
As such, in the wake of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act final rule, the NDHI, an initiative of the Healthcare Leadership Council, issued a joint statement at a Capitol Hill briefing today that highlighted four basic principles to guide these essential collaborations “and maintain the confidence and trust of all participants in our healthcare system, including patients, providers, payers, industry, researchers, academia, and government.”
“In the midst of all the concerns about conflict of interest, the Coalition for Healthcare Communication is proud to support this effort to highlight the value of industry partnerships,” said Coalition Executive Director John Kamp. “Policymakers, the press and the public need to better understand that collaboration is the key to innovation and better health for our nation’s citizens.”
Indeed, Mary R. Grealy, president of the Healthcare Leadership Council, said that “we never want to discourage these collaborations from taking place, because they are the catalysts for the new medical breakthroughs that protect and strengthen population health. But we need to move forward in a principled, patient-centric way, and these principles underscore the broad commitment to doing good work the right way.”
The NDHI principles are:
Organizations agreeing to the joint statement – which include AdvaMed, the American Osteopathic Association, the American College of Cardiology, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Cleveland Clinic, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, Friends of Cancer Research, the Lahey Clinic, Lilly, Medtronic, PhRMA, and the Society for Women’s Health Research – share a common goal: Promoting the “American innovative spirit so that new advances in medicine and medical technology can continue to make the journey from concept to the practice of medicine for the benefit of patients.”
Grealy added that “most of the lifesaving and life-changing medical innovations of the last several decades have come as a result of innovative biopharmaceutical and technology companies working with knowledgeable physicians and scientists.”
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