We have previously written about a proposed bill to regulate pharmaceutical sales representatives in the Philadelphia City Council and its circuitous path to its final vote. On Thursday, February 7, the proposed bill came to a final vote: 9-5 against the proposal.
As a reminder, the bill was introduced last fall by City Councilman Bill Greenlee and Councilwoman Cindy Bass with the intent to curtail the alleged influence sales representatives have over physicians. Greenlee and Bass also believed the bill could possibly prevent future addiction problems with other drugs. The bill would have required drug company sales representatives to register with the city at a cost of up to $250 and wear identification badges. The bill also would have banned giving gifts to health care providers and their office staff and required drug companies to submit copies of marketing materials to the Philadelphia Health Department so it could suggest “further education and training” for salespeople and doctors.
Before the vote, city health department spokesman Dan Garrow blamed the opioid crisis on “aggressive marketing of prescription painkillers by pharmaceutical sales representatives.” He added that “Prescribing of other drugs that can be abused — such as amphetamine, also known as Adderall — has also risen significantly.”
The bill was defeated by an unusual coalition of left-leaning and Republican City Council members, including pro-business Republicans Al Taubenberger, David Oh, and Brian O’Neill; activist Democrats Helen Gym, Maria Quiñones Sánchez, and Derek Green; recently indicted Democrat Bobby Henon, the council’s majority leader; plus Democrats Mark Squilla and Alan Domb. The bill’s sponsors, Greenlee and Bass, were joined in their support with fellow Democrats Kenyatta Johnson, Council Chair Darrell Clarke, and Jannie Blackwell. The other three City Council members were either absent or recused themselves from voting.
Shortly after its introduction last year, the bill seemed like it would easily be passed, given the Philadelphia City Council’s political make-up. However, members of the hospitality industry – among others – began to speak out against the bill when discussing their worries that such a restrictive bill could have the effect of chasing doctors and sales representatives away who eat in the city’s restaurants and fill hotel rooms at conventions and industry meetings.
Christopher P. Molineaux, president of Life Sciences Pennsylvania, called the bill’s defeat a “welcome development,” noting that “[t]his bill was written under the guise of addressing the opioid abuse epidemic but was, in fact, designed to restrict interactions between pharmaceutical sales representatives and the physicians who prescribe the medicines that are studied, developed and manufactured by those reps’ companies.” He also claimed the monitoring in the bill would do “nothing to reverse the opioid abuse epidemic.”