Star-Tribune: Forest paid Minnesota doctors more than $750,000 in 2008

09/03/2009

An analysis by the Pew Prescription Project found that Forest laboratories paid Minnesota physicians more than $750,000 in speaking fees and travel reimbursements in 2008, far outstripping companies of comparable size, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reports. The company, ranked 18th in revenue among U.S. pharmaceutical companies, was fourth in payments made to Minnesota doctors, after pharma-giants Eli Lilly, Glaxosmith Kline and Pfizer. Forest is being investigated for marketing tactics around its antidepressant Lexapro.

"The analysis tells us that a lot of doctors in Minnesota have become extensions of Forest's marketing campaign," said Allan Coukell, director of The Pew Prescription Project.

For more, read the Star-Tribune report, and about internal marketing documents at the New York Times.

PharmaShine(TM) (www.pharmashine.com) is an online service that allows healthcare consumers, providers and organizations to easily search and analyze available public data on pharmaceutical and device industry payments to physicians and other health care providers.  The Pew Prescription Project accessed the PharmaShine (TM) database under a beta-test agreement with Obsidian HDS.