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May 11, 2007: Doctors are getting huge
financial incentives for prescribing two of the
widely-sold drugs used to restore haemoglobin
levels in cancer and dialysis patients, says a
report.
Drug makers Amgen and Johnson & Johnson are paying
hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every
year in return for giving their patients anemia
medicines-- Aranesp and Epogen (Amgen) and Procrit
(Johnson & Johnson).
Reports suggests that increasing competition
between the players over the last several years
have led to payments compelling physicians
prescribe the medicines at levels that might put
patients’ life in jeopardy.
Though actual figures regarding the payments are
not yet available, documents given to show that at
just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a
group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million
from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its
drugs last year, according to the leading US
newspaper The New York Times.
Meanwhile, the federal drug regulator in the US
(Food and Drug Administration) released a report
that suggested that their use might need to be
curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared
by FDA staff scientists, said no evidence
indicated that the medicines either improved
quality of life in patients or extended their
survival, while several studies suggested that the
drugs can shorten patients’ lives when used at
high doses.
Aranesp, Epogen and Procritare are among the
world’s top-selling drugs, with combined sales of
$10 billion last year. In US, they represent the
single biggest drug expense for Medicare and are
given to about a million patients each year to
treat anemia caused by kidney disease or cancer
chemotherapy.
The anemia drugs are injected or given
intravenously in physicians’ offices or dialysis
centers. So the doctors are benefited by two ways:
from the rebates after they buy the drugs from the
companies as well as reimbursement from Medicare
or private insurers for the drugs. The rebates are
related to the amount of drugs that doctors buy,
and physicians that agree to use one company’s
drugs exclusively typically receive higher
rebates.
Unlike most drugs, the anemia medicines do not
come in fixed doses. Therefore, doctors have great
flexibility to increase dosing — and profits.
Critics say that the companies have contributed to
the confusion by failing to test whether lower
doses of the medicines might work better than
higher doses, reports say.
BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT
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