Legislators: Glaxo Letter on Gift Ban May Backfire (Boston Herald)

By Jay Fitzgerald   |   Thursday, May 8, 2008

Key legislators warned yesterday that GlaxoSmithKline’s harsh criticism of a proposed ban on gift-giving to doctors could end up backfiring and force lawmakers to “dig in their feet” on the controversial issue.

Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge), one of the main backers of banning gifts to doctors from drug companies, said the Glaxo letter - sent earlier this week to Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders - was “over the top and counterproductive.”

The Glaxo letter, which said Massachusetts has a “strong antibiopharmaceutical streak,” could stiffen legislative support for the gift-ban provision that has already passed the Senate and is now before the House, said Moore.

Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford), another backer of the gift ban, said the Glaxo letter was “baloney” and that the pharmaceutical industry is trying to preserve its “price gouging” of consumers and taxpayers.

Even the vice chairman of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council was trying to put a little distance between his group and the blunt Glaxo letter, which accused some lawmakers of wanting to “attack and demonize” the drug industry.

“The state’s political leadership has been supportive of and responsive to biotechnology industry issues,” Mark Leuchtenberger, the group’s vice chairman and chief executive of Cambridge’s Targanta Therapeutics, said in a statement.

“When issues arise that we feel may adversely affect the industry and patients, it is our job to educate leadership - as we are doing - and not to question their commitment to biotechnology.”

But some in the local industry said Glaxo was merely stating concerns that other biotech and pharmaceutical executives have about the gift-ban proposal.

“How do you softly say, you oppose a policy?” said Chris Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council. He said the state is implementing “contradictory policies” if it passes both the gift ban and Patrick’s $1 billion life-sciences initiative.