Washington, D.C., Council To Consider Bill Requiring Licensing of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives

The Washington, D.C., Council on Tuesday will consider legislation that would require pharmaceutical sales representatives in the district to be licensed, the Washington Post reports. If the bill is approved, the district would be the first jurisdiction to require that pharmaceutical sales representatives are licensed.

The SafeRx Act, sponsored by David Catania (I), would create a pharmacy board that would be responsible for creating a code of ethics for drug representatives and standards for the profession, including mandates that representatives have college degrees and prohibiting salespeople from using titles that could lead physicians to think that representatives have medicine, pharmacy or nursing degrees. In addition, the legislation would prohibit pharmaceutical manufacturers from using physicians' prescribing habits for marketing purposes without their knowledge.

Catania said that the bill is necessary to ensure that the representatives do not lead physicians to purchase the most expensive prescription drugs on the market when generic drugs with similar efficacies are available. Catania said, "This is about patient safety, having decisions made based on science and efficacy, not money."

However, critics of the bill "have questioned whether Catania's bill would really protect patients or whether it is a pet project for the lawmaker," who recently was elected chair of the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices, according to the Post. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America argues that Catania's bill overlaps with federal efforts to regulate drug companies. Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at PhRMA, said, "The D.C. government should not be trying to insert itself into an arena that is already well covered nationwide by federal agencies," adding, "We should avoid the confusions of a patchwork quilt of local laws" (Stewart, Washington Post, 12/9).

Editorial
Given the district's health issues, "it's perplexing that the D.C. Council is focusing its attention on a dubious crackdown against the pharmaceutical industry," according to a Post editorial. Although Catania "is frequently right in his criticism of an industry that too often places its desire for profits ahead of the needs of patients," the bill "is an unnecessary overreach of government regulation" because he "has made a less than convincing case that abuses are so rampant as to warrant this measure," the editorial states.

According to the editorial, hospitals, physicians and drug stores would all "see unintended consequences" in the law, adding, "The district already has some of the highest drug costs in the nation, and that's without imposing government licensing fees on the drug companies." It concludes, "The council should reject this well-intentioned but badly thought-out bill and focus on the more pressing health issues that demand attention" (Washington Post, 12/10).