Today we learn about AbbVie. This company is one of the MOST AGGRESSIVE pharma companies out there. I have literally had pharma reps from this company attempt to coerce me into prescribing more of their medications than I do the competitors drugs. They “request” so and so number of new prescriptions in the next 3 months or by end of the year or blah blah. One of their reps told a colleague in another office that if they prescribed Vraylar to 10 new patients they (the rep) would win a trip. Their reps have been banned from certain psych offices for this coercive behavior. Their primary drug that I work with is called Vraylar. Vraylar has been a good drug for a few of my patients. I am not a fan of brand name pricy drugs. Vraylar has the bonus of a long half life, so in patients who forget to take their meds or skip doses, they are not going to have symptom rebound as quickly due to the long duration it takes to decrease plasma levels of the drug. It has the same dopamine and serotonin target action as other meds in this drug class. They are really pimping this drug hard core now because the good ol FDA approved it for not only bipolar disorder, but also major depressive disorder. They copied what their competitor Rexulti did with the FDA indication. Gotta get as much money and as many patients on it as they can ya know. There are far more patients “diagnosed” with depression than bipolar disorder, so it became a honeypot of potential prescriptions when the FDA approved it for major depressive disorder. Other psychiatric medications made by AbbVie include Viibryd, Saphris, Namenda (the Alzheimers scam drug), Lexapro, Fetzima, Depakote, Celexa.
Have any of these companies come to you touting a Phase IV or Post Market Clinical Trial, asking that you provide x number of participants with the catch being that they will pay you an honoraria per participant? "Oh, also, we are having a kickoff meeting somewhere in the Bahamas this winter and of course, all expenses will be paid." That is one of their scams. In fact, in a former life, I resigned from the BOD of a company that was willing to distribute "honoraria" for one of the company's you mentioned in your post. The old FDA frowned upon the pay to play practices, thus they conned smaller companies into doing their dirty work under the table. The new corrupt FDA is probably now encouraging this and skimming off the top.
I will say the biggest offender I have encountered is not AbbVie, it is another drug company, but they actually tried to pull a quid pro quo on me. Back in 2018, when I was not a fraction of as knowledgable to the games that pharma plays, one female rep played the game real good. She totally played the "girls club" card. Would stop by and chat and never mention her drug a single time. Just "oh I was in the neighborhood and wanted to just come say hi to you". She went on vacation and brought me back some candy that is native to the area she traveled to. Spent a year just being a normal human and just chatting. Sadly, she gained my trust. She started talking to me about how much knowledge I could share with others, and would I be interested in talking to providers about what positive benefits I had seen with this drug. I stupidly said "sure". That is when everything changed. Then came the "we need to see you prescribing more of this if you want to be a speaker for us". I was getting calls from her manager and the pharmacy liaison and blah blah. THEN she went a step further and started asking me about how patients were doing on the med for things the drug was not indicated for. Scouting me for "secondary FDA indications" they were trying to get FDA approval for. Asked me for details, number of patients, symptom improvement trying to correlate THEIR drug as being an off label benefit, and gathering that data to take back to the powers that be to apply for a new FDA indication.
Then covid happened. The pharma reps hid at home for darn near a year. We didn't see them. When this one came back into our office in 2021, she was guns blazing to recoup the bonuses she lost the year before. I had taken most of my patients off the drug she sold and went generic. She was not happy. She stood in my hallway and threatened me that if I did not ramp up my prescribing, I would not be considered as a "professional speaker" for said drug. I told her to take the drug and shove it up her ass. I never saw her again. That was the beginning of my journey into pharma and what they are up to, and I haven't looked back. I am mad I did not wake up to their game sooner. I have since learned that they have a psychological portfolio on providers. THey know our hobbies, our interests, if we have kids or not, favorite foods/snacks/drinks etc. They come in playing the relatable game to earn our trust. Makes me want to vomit.
The "honoraria" they pay now are to the physicians who they hire to speak for them. From what I see in psych, they don't have many vacations or honoraria for the non-hired speakers, they roll out the red carpet for those who they hire to speak for them. Trips across the country for "training", where they are not only all expenses paid but the speaker also gets paid for attending! Who wouldn't want to earn a few grand for a 2-3 day trip to Sedona or Orlando or San Diego all expenses paid, right? All ya gotta do is sell your soul to the pharma company to get the perks and freebies!
As for the smaller companies doing the dirty work: 100%. There are 2 smaller companies that promote bigger psych pharma drugs as "partners". They do the bulk of the work while the big name company sits back. I am happy to divulge more of this privately if you want. Feel free to email me anytime.
Ya, very scary. You don't go through Med School and residency to sell you soul to the Pharma companies. Unfortunately, if you want the big bucks as a doctor today, you must become an "Investigator". That means you sign up for some sort of trial, Phase 1-4 or some sort of post market registry, which is really a marketing trial. As an Investigator, you are putting your name to said drug, device, treatment, etc. That is then used to recruit other sites and other physicians. Some of this is legit, some not.
Ya, I have some stories about promotion of a drug for off label use as well. It is my understanding that what a physician uses a drug to treat is at their discretion. However, the pharma companies absolutely cannot promote off label use. This is especially relevant for many oncology drugs. Because the FDA is (used to be) so stringent on approvals and many oncologists have patients that are going to die, physicians are more than willing to experiment with indications other than those approved in the hope of extending life or adding to the QOL of the patient.
I will send you an email and we can discuss some things, again, thanks for all the work you do. You are taking an enormous risk in a world controlled by big government, pharma, defense, etc. Cancel culture is real. However, if we can expose enough, people will start to come around ... hopefully.
Several years back I was on a very expensive orphan drug to treat what was diagnosed as “narcolepsy” at the time. I don’t have narcolepsy and I don’t take this medicine any longer . Discussion for another day . My point in bringing this up is that beginning costs of this drug were 5000.00 a month. By the time I stopped taking it the cost per month had risen to 12,000.00. The manufacturer was running ads on tv for it as well…..
Thank you for your work
Have any of these companies come to you touting a Phase IV or Post Market Clinical Trial, asking that you provide x number of participants with the catch being that they will pay you an honoraria per participant? "Oh, also, we are having a kickoff meeting somewhere in the Bahamas this winter and of course, all expenses will be paid." That is one of their scams. In fact, in a former life, I resigned from the BOD of a company that was willing to distribute "honoraria" for one of the company's you mentioned in your post. The old FDA frowned upon the pay to play practices, thus they conned smaller companies into doing their dirty work under the table. The new corrupt FDA is probably now encouraging this and skimming off the top.
I will say the biggest offender I have encountered is not AbbVie, it is another drug company, but they actually tried to pull a quid pro quo on me. Back in 2018, when I was not a fraction of as knowledgable to the games that pharma plays, one female rep played the game real good. She totally played the "girls club" card. Would stop by and chat and never mention her drug a single time. Just "oh I was in the neighborhood and wanted to just come say hi to you". She went on vacation and brought me back some candy that is native to the area she traveled to. Spent a year just being a normal human and just chatting. Sadly, she gained my trust. She started talking to me about how much knowledge I could share with others, and would I be interested in talking to providers about what positive benefits I had seen with this drug. I stupidly said "sure". That is when everything changed. Then came the "we need to see you prescribing more of this if you want to be a speaker for us". I was getting calls from her manager and the pharmacy liaison and blah blah. THEN she went a step further and started asking me about how patients were doing on the med for things the drug was not indicated for. Scouting me for "secondary FDA indications" they were trying to get FDA approval for. Asked me for details, number of patients, symptom improvement trying to correlate THEIR drug as being an off label benefit, and gathering that data to take back to the powers that be to apply for a new FDA indication.
Then covid happened. The pharma reps hid at home for darn near a year. We didn't see them. When this one came back into our office in 2021, she was guns blazing to recoup the bonuses she lost the year before. I had taken most of my patients off the drug she sold and went generic. She was not happy. She stood in my hallway and threatened me that if I did not ramp up my prescribing, I would not be considered as a "professional speaker" for said drug. I told her to take the drug and shove it up her ass. I never saw her again. That was the beginning of my journey into pharma and what they are up to, and I haven't looked back. I am mad I did not wake up to their game sooner. I have since learned that they have a psychological portfolio on providers. THey know our hobbies, our interests, if we have kids or not, favorite foods/snacks/drinks etc. They come in playing the relatable game to earn our trust. Makes me want to vomit.
The "honoraria" they pay now are to the physicians who they hire to speak for them. From what I see in psych, they don't have many vacations or honoraria for the non-hired speakers, they roll out the red carpet for those who they hire to speak for them. Trips across the country for "training", where they are not only all expenses paid but the speaker also gets paid for attending! Who wouldn't want to earn a few grand for a 2-3 day trip to Sedona or Orlando or San Diego all expenses paid, right? All ya gotta do is sell your soul to the pharma company to get the perks and freebies!
As for the smaller companies doing the dirty work: 100%. There are 2 smaller companies that promote bigger psych pharma drugs as "partners". They do the bulk of the work while the big name company sits back. I am happy to divulge more of this privately if you want. Feel free to email me anytime.
Ya, very scary. You don't go through Med School and residency to sell you soul to the Pharma companies. Unfortunately, if you want the big bucks as a doctor today, you must become an "Investigator". That means you sign up for some sort of trial, Phase 1-4 or some sort of post market registry, which is really a marketing trial. As an Investigator, you are putting your name to said drug, device, treatment, etc. That is then used to recruit other sites and other physicians. Some of this is legit, some not.
Ya, I have some stories about promotion of a drug for off label use as well. It is my understanding that what a physician uses a drug to treat is at their discretion. However, the pharma companies absolutely cannot promote off label use. This is especially relevant for many oncology drugs. Because the FDA is (used to be) so stringent on approvals and many oncologists have patients that are going to die, physicians are more than willing to experiment with indications other than those approved in the hope of extending life or adding to the QOL of the patient.
I will send you an email and we can discuss some things, again, thanks for all the work you do. You are taking an enormous risk in a world controlled by big government, pharma, defense, etc. Cancel culture is real. However, if we can expose enough, people will start to come around ... hopefully.
Thank you🌺. And by the way, "vie" is French for "life". Latin would be "vita".
Thank you for the correction on that!!!! :)
Hello Jennifer. You are so brave and so smart. I would love to work with you. These pushers are monsters. Take a look at El Gato's stack this morning.
Several years back I was on a very expensive orphan drug to treat what was diagnosed as “narcolepsy” at the time. I don’t have narcolepsy and I don’t take this medicine any longer . Discussion for another day . My point in bringing this up is that beginning costs of this drug were 5000.00 a month. By the time I stopped taking it the cost per month had risen to 12,000.00. The manufacturer was running ads on tv for it as well…..
Thank you Jennifer.
All of your posts are a major tool in exposing the wretched megapharmas for exactly what they really are. Money grubbing evil criminal organisations.