The US Supreme Court has recently ruled that an August 2010 First Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a Maine law be vacated and remanded back to the lower court for reconsideration in light of the decision in Sorrell v. IMS Health. The decision should lead to an order holding that the statute is unconstitutional. This comes days after a ruling that US states may not prohibit the use of information about physician healthcare practices in the marketing of medicines.
The Maine statute is very similar to the Vermont law that the US Supreme Court found violated the First Amendment by improperly restricting the rights of others from sharing information about physicians' prescribing practices. IMS Health was joined in the suit by SDI and Source Healthcare Analytics (a subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions). The companies had petitioned the US Supreme Court earlier this year to review the decision of the First Circuit.
In 2007, Maine and Vermont joined New Hampshire as the only states to pass such laws. No state has passed a law since, although other states have considered such legislation. The existing laws in Maine and New Hampshire are both likely to be declared unconstitutional or repealed in light of the Supreme Court decision.
Information about physician prescribing practices for improving patient care, cost management and health outcomes is said to be used by virtually all healthcare stakeholders. These include hospitals, payers, government agencies, biopharmaceutical manufacturers and researchers. Critical uses of this information include studying prescribing trends, monitoring the safety of new medicines, supporting safety-oriented risk management programmes, preventing prescription drug abuse, recruiting patients for clinical trials and assessing treatment variability.
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