Payments to Physicians

Floor Speech

PAYMENTS TO PHYSICIANS -- (Senate - June 23, 2008)

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I started looking at the financial relationships between physicians and drug companies several years ago. I first began this inquiry by examining payments to individuals who served on FDA's Advisory Boards. More recently, I began looking at payments from drug companies to professors at our nation's medical schools and more specifically at the payments from Astra Zeneca to a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati.

I then moved on to look at several psychiatrists at Harvard and Mass General Hospital. These physicians are some of the top psychiatrists in the country, and their research is some of the most important in the field. They have also taken millions of dollars from the drug companies and failed to report those payments accurately to Harvard and Mass General.

For instance, in 2000 the National Institutes of Health awarded one Harvard physician a grant to study atomoxetine in children. At that time, this physician disclosed that he received less than $10,000 in payments from Eli Lilly which makes Straterra, a brand name of atomoxetine. But Eli Lilly reported that it paid this same physician more than $14,000 for advisory services that year--a difference of at least $4,000.

I would now like to report what I have found out about another researcher--Dr. Alan Schatzberg at Stanford. In the late nineties, Dr. Schatzberg helped to start a company called Corcept Therapeutics--Dr. Schatzberg is a copatent owner on a drug developed by Corcept. That company applied to the Food and Drug Administration for approval to market Mifepristone for psychotic depression.

Dr. Schatzberg is a well-known psychiatrist and has received several grants from the National Institutes of Health to study Mifepristone. While Dr. Schatzberg has reported some of his income from Corcept Therapeutics to Stanford, he did not report a profit of $109,179 from the sale of 15,597 shares of Corcept stock on August 15, 2005 because he was not required to do that under Stanford's rules.

But if it is not required by Stanford, I submit to you that it should be. Why? Because in his Stanford disclosures, Dr. Schatzberg only had to report whether he had more than $100,000 of stock in Corcept Therapeutics. However, his filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show that he has control of 2,738,749 shares of Corcept stock worth over $6 million.

In addition, in 2002 Dr. Schatzberg did not report any income from Johnson & Johnson, but the company reported to me that it paid Dr. Schatzberg $22,000 that year. And in 2004, Dr. Schatzberg reported receiving between $10,000-$50,000 from Eli Lilly. But Eli Lilly reported to me that they paid Dr. Schaztberg over $52,000 that year.

Before closing, I would like to say that Stanford has been very cooperative in this investigation, as have been many of the drug companies. I ask unanimous consent to have my letter to Stanford printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

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