MONTPELIER – The Vermont Medical Society applauds the decision by Gov. Jim Douglas to sign into law S.115, a bill to control the cost of prescription drugs. Enactment of S.115 means that thousands of Vermonters will save money on their prescription drugs, and it will limit one of the biggest health care cost drivers – aggressive pharmaceutical marketing. According to a legislative analysis, the savings from the provisions in S.115 could be more than $10 million a year.

The bill had strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate because of its multi-pronged approach to controlling prescription drug costs. The Vermont Medical Society, the Attorney General’s Office and AARP strongly supported the bill, particularly the provision that creates an opt-in program for prescribers to consent to their identifying information being used for the marketing and promotion of prescription drugs.

Drug manufacturing companies use physicians’ prescribing information to tailor their marketing messages to convince doctors to change their prescribing practices.  These efforts are directed almost exclusively towards increasing sales and market share of newer brand drugs, as opposed to equally effective, but less expensive, generic drugs or over-the-counter drugs.  An editorial, dated May 15, 2007, from the Annuals of Internal Medicine states: “[O]ne recent market research report concluded that profiling improves profit margins by as much as 3 percentage points and the initial uptake of innovative drugs by 30%.”

The VMS believes that the practice of selling prescription data to marketers increases the cost of drugs and the overall cost of health care.  An AARP report found that the prices of the most commonly used brand name drugs for older adults rose nearly 6.2% in 2006, about twice the general rate of inflation. In contrast, the same report found that the price of the generic drugs tracked by AARP fell by 2 percent, continuing a downward trend that began in 2003. 

In the final version of S.115 the Legislature addressed the concerns raised in the recently released decision on the New Hampshire data mining law. In that case, the federal district court found that the law violated the data-mining companies’ right to free commercial speech, without directly serving a substantial state interest. The final version of the Vermont bill includes detailed legislative findings that spell out the state of Vermont’s interests in limiting the practice of data mining and the sale of identifiable prescriber information. 

Instead of New Hampshire’s outright ban on transfer and use of identifiable prescription information for commercial purposes, S.115 includes an “opt-in” provision that will be managed by the state’s professional licensing boards. Under the “opt-in” program, a prescriber could consent for his or her identifying information to be used for marketing and promotion of prescription drugs, at the time of license application or renewal. 

S.115 will also greatly expand the use of lower-cost generic drugs in Vermont by providing both patients and prescribers with more information about the availability and efficacy of alternative medications. A sample program for generic medications will be created, which may produce savings for Vermonters between $10 million and $11 million a year, according to a Joint Fiscal Office analysis.

The new law will also require pharmaceutical marketers to provide physicians with fact-based information about the health benefits and risks of using their products and other drugs. S.115’s requirements are necessary to counterbalance the millions of dollars spent by pharmaceutical manufacturers to convince physicians to prescribe their new, expensive medications rather than the lower-cost options that are usually just as effective. Research has shown that sales information provided by drug marketers is not always accurate or complete. 

Physicians who write prescriptions for their patients have a reasonable expectation that the information in that prescription will not be used for purposes other than the filling and processing of the payment for that prescription. Prescribers do not consent to the trade of that information to drug company marketers and no such trade should take place without their consent.

At the VMS Annual Meeting last October, its membership unanimously passed a resolution stating “the use of physician prescription information by sales representatives is an intrusion into the way physicians practice medicine.” The Vermont Medical Society thanks members of the Vermont General Assembly, Gov. Jim Douglas, and the members of his administration for their support of this important legislation, which will produce long-term savings for all Vermonters.

-30-

For more information, contact: