To determine the impact of physicians' financial relationships with the pharmaceutical industry on prescribing marketed alpha-blockers and overactive bladder medications. We also aim to examine if the number or total value of transactions is influential.
We linked the Open Payments Program database of industry payments to prescribers with Medicare Part D prescription data. We used binomial logistic regression to identify the association between receipt of industry payment and prescribing of marketed alpha-blockers (silodosin) and overactive bladder (OAB) medications (fesoterodine, solifenacin, and mirabegron). We also evaluated the impact of increasing total value and number of payments on prescribing of marketed drugs.
The receipt of industry payment was associated with increased odds of prescribing the marketed drug for all included drugs: silodosin (OR 34.1); fesoterodine (OR 5.9); solifenacin (OR 2.7); and mirabegron (OR 6.8) (all p<0.001). We also found that increasing value of total payment and increasing frequency of payments were both independently associated with increased odds of prescribing with a dose-response effect.
There is a consistent association between receipt of industry payment and prescribing marketed alpha-blockers and OAB medications. Both the total value and number of transactions is associated with prescribing.
Urology. 2018 Apr 19 [Epub ahead of print]
Parth K Modi, Ye Wang, Peter S Kirk, James M Dupree, Eric A Singer, Steven L Chang
Dow Division of Health Services Research, Department of Urology, Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI. Electronic address: ., Center for Surgery and Public Health and Division of Urology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA., Dow Division of Health Services Research, Department of Urology, Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI., Section of Urologic Oncology, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ.