Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) released a somewhatsofter version of their Physician Payments Sunshine Act while praising EliLilly & Co. for endorsing the legislation.
The bill, as currently written, would impose significantlylower penalties than the $10,000 to $100,000 per violation in the original legislation.It distinguishes between “knowing failure to report,” for which companies maybe fined up to $50,000 per violation, capped at $250,000 per year, andunintended omissions, which can cost companies $1,000-$5,000 or upto $50,000 per year. The bill would pre-empt state reporting requirements, someof which would be more stringent, and information would be posted online,through a publicly accessible HHS website.
By contrast, for a single infraction, whether willful ornot, its House counterpart would not only levy fines but bar companies fromtaking tax deductions on advertising for a year, potentially costing themmillions.
The revised Senate bill would also give companies severalyears to get themselves in compliance. The original version would have beeneffective immediately.
In a statement, Grassley, who is ranking member of theSenate Committee on Finance, said: “Eli Lilly deserves credit for itsendorsement of the Sunshine Act and its leadership role it is taking forgreater transparency in the pharmaceutical industry….The company’sforward-looking endorsement of legislation to require reporting of financialrelationships between drug and device makers and physicians will be valuable inbuilding more support for this important reform.”
Lilly weighed in on behalf of the revised bill yesterday,with president and CEO John Lechleiter saying in a statement: “Lilly welcomesgreater transparency in the healthcare system and believes this legislationrepresents an important step in building public trust and confidence in therelationships between the pharmaceutical and device industries and physicians.Lilly intends to continue to build upon its leadership position intransparency. In addition to our publicly available clinical trial andeducational grant registries, we continue to look at other ways to open up ourbusiness to the public. This will help provide the assurance that Lilly runsits business consistent not only with our principles, but with the principlesthat a healthcare provider or patient should expect from a pharmaceuticalcompany.”
Lilly has made clinical trials and clinical trials datapublic since 2004 and last year began posting information on its med ed grantsonline.
The bill was also endorsed by the Association of AmericanMedical Colleges.
