Pharma Insider Part I

Pharma Insider Part I

  

Off-label promotion under the radar Physicians can prescribe drugs off-label (for non-FDA-approved uses), but it is illegal for pharmaceutical companies to promote drugs off-label. Douglas Melnick, MD MPH, a former pharma insider, tells Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD how companies get around the bans. Medical science liaisons are company doctors and pharmacists that can legally answer questions about off-label use, so drug reps may coax questions about off-label uses from doctors, and then refer those questions to MSLs. Company representatives also manipulate compendia, which are compilations of drug uses - including off-label uses - that are used by insurers to determine what drugs to pay for. Dr. Melnick, a preventive medicine physician, is a consultant to PharmedOut.org, a publicly funded project to educate physicians about inappropriate pharmaceutical promotion. Dr. Fugh-Berman is the principal investigator of PharmedOut.org. Transcript of this video is available at http://www.pharmedout.org. PharmedOut is an independent project funded through the Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education grant program that educates physicians on how pharmaceutical companies influence prescribing.