A firm that specializes in HIV medications has become the eighth pharmaceutical company to disclose the payments it has made to U.S. health professionals for speaking and consulting.
ViiV Healthcare disclosed $3.4 million in payments during the first three quarters of 2010. ViiV is jointly owned by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, both of which have separately disclosed their payments to doctors and other health professionals.
The payments have been added to ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database, which now includes more than $320 million in fees paid since 2009. Other companies are expected to report payments this year, and federal law requires that all drug and medical device manufacturers do so by 2013.
ViiV’s top recipients include Dr. Nicholaos Bellos of Dallas ($83,250), Dr. Daisy Lazarous of Waldorf, Md. ($81,000), Dr. Ricky K. Hsu of New York City ($74,750), Dr. Elizabeth M. Race of Dallas ($65,250) and Dr. Gary Blick of Norwalk, Conn. ($61,750).
According to ViiV’s website, it was created in October 2009, has a 19 percent share of the worldwide HIV drug market and a portfolio of 10 medications.
In announcing its third-quarter earnings, Glaxo disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn regarding “sales and marketing practices for three HIV products, as well as educational programmes, grants or payments to physicians regarding any drug used to treat HIV-infected adults.”
Glaxo said it is cooperating with the inquiry and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney declined comment. All of Glaxo’s HIV drugs are now controlled by ViiV.
Also today, we are adding to our database $19.4 million in payments from Eli Lilly and Co. for the third quarter of 2010, $1 million in payments from Cephalon for the fourth quarter and $1.7 million from two Johnson and Johnson subsidiaries for the second quarter. We previously posted payments through the third quarter for another subsidiary, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
We will continue to update our database as additional payments are reported.
