Massachusetts has reportedly issued a final regulation implementing “a sweeping new regime affecting the way biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies can market their products within the Commonwealth”.
The regulation significantly limits the promotional gifts, including meals, that companies can provide to doctors and other health care practitioners as part of their promotional programmes.
According to a report filed by boston.com, the state officials recently gave final approval to regulations banning pharmaceutical and medical device companies from providing gifts to physicians, limiting when companies can pay for doctors’ meals, and requiring companies to publicly disclose payments to doctors over $50 for certain types of consulting and speaking engagements. Health officials said the rules are the most comprehensive in the nation; Massachusetts is now the only state to require disclosure by device makers, as well as drug companies, and just one of two states to make disclosures public, officials said.
The regulations, approved by the Public Health Council, are intended to implement a law passed last summer to restrict interactions between physicians and drug and device companies. Legislators have said the regulations are intended to control costs by reining in unnecessary prescribing of expensive drugs and to make doctors’ potential conflicts of interest transparent to the public.
