May 5, 2006

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The trend for pharmaceutical manufacturers to aggressively market prescription drugs is a growing source of concern among physicians and other health professionals. Now, a grant using funds from a nationwide settlement for “off label” marketing of a prescription drug will help University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers develop online tools to better educate physicians and health professionals about prescription drug marketing.

Maribel Salas, M.D., M.Sc., D.Sc., F.A.C.P., UAB assistant professor of preventive medicine, will use the $400,000 grant from the State of Alabama Attorney General’s Office to develop Internet-based education programs to help health professionals better evaluate prescription drug information and understand marketing techniques used in drug company promotional activities.

In 2004, Alabama Attorney General Troy King joined in a nationwide settlement involving “off-label” marketing of the drug Neurontin. The Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program is funded through the 2004 settlement resolving allegations that Warner-Lambert, a subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc., violated state consumer protection laws when promoting Neurontin for off-label uses. Salas was one of 24 researchers selected among 59 applicants nationwide to receive the first grants from the program.

Salas said UAB’s research project, “Marketing of Medicines: Strategies and Its Impact of Prescribe Behavior in the United States,” will develop and test a Web-based educational program for providers, designed to encourage rational prescription and promote better understanding of marketing techniques used in drug advertising.

“This project has the potential to impact the prescribing patterns of tens of thousands of physicians, clinical pharmacists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychiatric nurses and future prescribers, including medical and pharmacy students, across the nation,” Salas said. “We will use state-of-art technologies combined with the adult learning theory to show the effectiveness of a program for prescribers.”

In addition to Salas and colleagues in the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine, others working on the project include researchers in the UAB Department of Medicine, Birmingham Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics, UAB Department of Epidemiology, UAB Minority Health and Research Center, UAB Division of Continuing Medical Education and the Alabama Chapter of the American College of Physicians.