State Policy: Minnesota Clarifies Restrictions on Payments to Physicians
In response to recent joint hearings held by the Minnesota Commerce and Labor, and the Business, Industry and Jobs committees, “the Minnesota pharmacy board maintained that it's legal to pay doctors to answer bona fide marketing surveys.”
Their support of such legal work comes after debating legislation that the pharmacy board maintains “may keep the state a marketing research “dead zone.” In fact, the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, which collects physician gift data under a 1993 state law, asserted that it does not consider payments to physicians illegal, as long as the payment compensates the doctor “in connection with a genuine research project.” The Board also noted that although they consider such payments legal, “pharmaceutical companies must still file an annual report with the board concerning such payments.”
To clarify their stance, the Board posted an “FAQ on their website last month, which reflected their long-standing position that “those sorts of payments were allowed.” According to Cody Wiberg, the pharmacy board's executive director, people “were misinterpreting the FAQ because of the way it was written.”
Mr. Wiberg further explained that “legitimate surveys involve those which manufacturers hire a marketing-research company to carry out … in the physician never knows which company is the sponsor, and payments come through vendor, not manufacturer.”
Howard Fienberg, director of government affairs for the Marketing Research Association (MRA) applauded the board’s actions as a good “first step,” especially since “the board had not meant to dissuade industry from conducting legitimate marketing research.”
Part of the problem came from the 1993 Minnesota statute banning physician gifts over $50. The language was confusing because the original FAQ was talking about “marketing surveys—direct payments to practitioners for filling out a survey," not marketing research.
In addition to MRA, the Pharmaceutical Marketing Research Group (PMRG) and the Council of American Survey Research Organizations prompted the board to make the distinction clear.
Minnesota Legislation
This recent development from the board could be a temporary solution if recent legislation introduced in Minnesota is passed. The joint committee hearing in the Minnesota House and Senate last week, debated “three bills related to various aspects of pharmaceutical marketing.” Mr. Fienberg asserted that these bills will make Minnesota a “marketing-research “dead zone” to medical-device research.” In addition, Fienberg noted that states who have enacted similar laws about drug and device-company payments in connection with marketing research “have seen firms have stopp doing research in those states. In Massachusetts however, “MRA won an explicit exclusion for marketing research in regulations last year.”
During the hearing, Mr. Fienberg testified in front of the joint committee and defended the use of physician incentives in pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing.
He asserted that MRA would “like to see a blanket exclusion of bona fide marketing research from both reporting requirements and a ban.”
Ultimately, with pharmaceutical and medical device companies abandoning research in states with such rules, can patients and physicians really afford to be losing such accessible experience and funding? Without the support of medical device and industry, how are academic medical centers going to train and update physicians across each state with little funding for travel, lodging, and time away from practice? Mr. Fienberg’s testimony is an important voice in showing how crucial it is that industry remains in states to support the efforts of medical research and innovation to help create newer and better treatments for patients.