Amid ongoing concern that painkillers other than opioids are being misused, a new analysis suggests industry payments to physicians may cause increased prescribing of a class of drugs known as gabapentinoids, which are used to relieve pain and includes the popular Lyrica pill sold by Pfizer (PFE).
After combing through a federal database of payments to doctors and running statistical models, the researchers found that physicians receiving food, gifts, and speaking and consulting fees, among other things, were nearly twice as likely to prescribe these medicines instead of lower-cost generic versions.
More specifically, between 2014 and 2016, the companies that market the three brand-name pills made nearly 510,000 payments totaling approximately $11.5 million to 51,000 doctors. Notably, these doctors represented more than 14% of physicians who prescribed any gabapentinoid under Medicare Part D during that period, according to the analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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