IMS is fighting a law prohibiting the collection of prescribing data from physicians in New Hampshire, Vermont, and potentially a host of other states. (BusinessWeek Article) The law, which takes effect July 1 in Vermont, is being appealed by IMS this Tuesday, June 23. While timely with the current debates on healthcare reform, these laws do not address any core issue related to the country’s healthcare problems.

You can blame any number of inefficiencies in the healthcare system on medical error, lack of preventative care, antiquated medical record keeping, uninsured patients, etc. An obvious scapegoat is the pharmaceutical companies, as well - who, while spending billions of dollars on marketing their drugs, do, ultimately, provide therapeutics that improve the lives of many. But wait. This is not an issue of whether or not pharmaceutical marketing strategies are economically efficient practices. It is a question of whether or not companies like IMS and SDI should be able to aggregate this data and sell it to customers, like pharmaceutical companies.

If access to physician prescribing data is cut off, I see a few ways (off the top of my head) that pharmaceutical companies will get around it - because assuredly, they will find a way:

1) Pharma companies may throw more money at the system in order to gain mindshare among a less-targeted pool of prospective physician prescribers and patients (hire more sales people - whose jobs are now more difficult than ever, increase direct-to-consumer advertising, boost marketing activity at conferences, host events to build brand loyalty, etc.)

2) While IMS has an opt-out strategy, what about market research organizations who recruit an army of physicians to opt in to provide this data? A number of physicians would like to protect their privacy, but I would think just as many - if not more - would be okay providing this information, especially if they were a) compensated for it and/or b) given the opportunity to try new or competitive therapeutics that were not on their radar. Pharma companies would pay top dollar for a replacement for IMS, if it were no longer available.

By restricting the collection of this information, it does not getting to the root of the problem. Pharmaceutical marketing teams will still find a way to influence physician prescribing habits and will spend the money because it results in higher sales. For example, generic competition is definitely putting pressure on the pharma space, but in addition to sales force downsizing, we hear about companies cutting back on R&D and halting some clinical trials in order to focus their resources on activities that will turn a more near-term profit. Based on this, marketing would be the last to go. This is not a sustainable solution.

The data provided by organizations like IMS is valuable and should be available for marketing teams to optimize their strategy. If the concern is that healthcare costs are driven up because of this data, the problems that need to be addressed are physician decision-making or marketing practices, not access to third-party information providers.

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