Merck Paid Over $20 Million In 2010 -- To Various US Docs, As Speakers

To be precise, Whitehouse Station paid $20,365,446 to US doctors for speaking and appearances, with almost all of it going to discuss specific Merck drugs with other doctors, or the various Merck-targeted disease states. Recently, ProPublica updated its fine database, and the full year of 2010 is now covered -- for Merck, and most other big pharma concerns. Do go check the database, by state, by doc or by company -- it is a treasure trove of information.

My October 2010 backgrounders are here, here, here and here.

Merck's average quarterly spend on docs as speakers is $5,091,361. Wow. Quoting from one of my earlier backgrounders, then:

. . . .Yet another follow-on piece, from ProPublica -- concerning the conflicted interests that float around practicing doctors acting as highly-paid speakers for pharma marketing campaigns -- explains that we are only seeing a small portion of the payments, at present. That is so because the new health care law mandating such disclosures won't result in universal publication until mid-2013.

Even so, give Whitehouse Station some credit (and some is indeed due) for making the disclosures it has -- thus far -- voluntarily, and not, strictly speaking, due to a plea agreement with DoJ or a State Attorney General. I should note, however, that both Merck and Schering-Plough are/were subject to such plea agreements, and it is highly likely that Merck's voluntary disclosure won it some credit under its CIA.

Merck began disclosing voluntarily even before it inherited Schering-Plough's plea agreement, or "corporate integrity agreement" as these settlements are often called in the trade -- but make no mistake, both were looking to put some significant prior bad acts to bed -- with these agreements. . . .

Stay tuned for 2011 data in a few months.