Washington D.C. Bill Could Require Licenses for Drug Reps

As seen in the WSJ Health Blog. This not only looks promising, but it seems to be a reasonable solution for an area where their have been multiple problems. We'll need to see how this works out, but it might be useful in other jurisdictions.

Drug sales reps could soon join cosmetologists, plumbers and funeral directors in line to get licenses to practice their trade in Washington, D.C. The D.C. council passed a bill yesterday that would require licenses and compliance with a set of rules governing professional practices for reps.

The bill explicitly bars reps from “any deceptive or misleading marketing of a pharmaceutical product, including the knowing concealment, suppression, omission, misleading representation or misstatement of any material fact.” It also prohibits promoting drugs for unapproved uses. New reps would be required to have a college degree. And bill would allow the D.C. Board of Pharmacy to collect information from reps regarding their interactions with health care providers.

[...]

The bill would also create a so-called “academic detailing program” in D.C. Academic detailing is a sort of ‘unsales pitch‘ that uses drug reps’ techniques to teach doctors when a cheap generic drug is as good as a more expensive branded one.

The bill must be signed by the mayor, who the Washington Post says supports the measure. Congress also has veto power over D.C.’s local ordinances — though given the skepticism toward pharma in Congress these days, it seems unlikely that a veto will come into play here.

[...]