Physician Payment Sunshine: Eli Lilly Acts

In a move to provide greater transparency of payments for consulting and speaking to physicians, Eli Lilly Announced today that starting 2009 Lilly will be posting the names and payments to physicians on their website.

At a speech before the Economic Club of Indiana today, Lilly's president and chief executive officer, John Lechleiter, Ph.D., outlined the company's plans to launch an online registry of physician payments in 2009. Lechleiter announced the physician registry as a part of a broader outline on the company's transformation efforts.

"With each of our industry firsts, from launching our clinical trials registry to the public reporting of educational grants, Lilly is striving to be a leader in improving transparency across our industry," said Lechleiter. "As Lilly continues to look for more ways to be open and transparent about our business, we've learned that letting people see for themselves what we're doing is the best way to build trust."

Earlier this year, Lilly was the first pharmaceutical research company to endorse bipartisan federal legislation – known as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act – that would establish a national registry of payments to physicians by medical device, medical supply and pharmaceutical companies. The legislation, which was introduced by United States Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Herbert Kohl (D-Wisconsin) last September, has not been passed yet by Congress.

Lechleiter added, "Though we remain hopeful that the Sunshine Act will be passed by Congress at some point, Lilly is taking action independently. Being more transparent by opening up our business to the public is an important step to building trust and confidence."

Under the Lilly registry plan, the public will have access to an Internet database listing its payments to physicians. Lilly will launch this registry as early as the second half of 2009. When first launched, its contents will include 2009 payments to physicians who serve the company as speakers and advisors. By 2011, Lilly plans to expand the reporting capabilities of the registry to resemble the Sunshine Act legislation. The registry will be updated annually to reflect the previous year's payment information.

"Eli Lilly is leading the charge for transparency in the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors by fulfilling the obligations of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act before it has been enacted," said Senator Kohl. "It takes a lot of courage to be the first. They have made a principled decision that I believe will benefit both their business and the consumers of their products."

"Lilly is proud of the important and longstanding relationships we have with physicians," said Lechleiter. "Many physicians perform valuable services for the biopharmaceutical industry by advising us on the development of new medicines and giving lectures to other medical professionals to educate them about new treatment options. For these services, they are compensated at market rates. These services help to advance the science related to medicines and are important to both current and future patients who rely on pharmaceuticals as an integral part of their therapy."

"Our primary focus is the well-being of our patients and APA has adopted strict disclosure policies to ensure our patients are informed regarding relationships between physicians and industry," said James H. Scully Jr., M.D., CEO and Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association. "We applaud efforts by Lilly to ensure there is transparency in their relationships with physicians."

Our industry is doing a lot to help develop life saving medication and devices, this move shows that self disclosure is always better than government interdiction.