Industry Payments to Physicians and Prescriptions of Brand-Name Proton-Pump Inhibitors

Objective To characterize the association between industry payments and prescriptions of 2 brand-name proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs). Study Design Cross-sectional retrospective. Setting Physicians nationwide. Subjects and Methods We identified all physicians receiving industry payments for Dexilant and Nexium 2014-2015 from the Open Payments database. We linked this to records of prescriptions for PPIs paid for by Medicare Part D these same years and compared the proportion of prescriptions written for Dexilant and Nexium in industry-compensated vs nonindustry compensated physicians. The number and dollar amount of payments were associated with the rate of drug prescriptions. Results We identified 254,452 physicians prescribing PPIs; 8586 and 2766 physicians received industry payments for Dexilant and Nexium, respectively. A total of 5052 of 7876 (64%) physicians compensated for Dexilant prescribed Dexilant vs 39,778 of 246,571 (16%) noncompensated physicians (P < .001). For Nexium, 2525 of 2654 (95%) compensated physicians prescribed Nexium, compared to 123,913 of 252,067 (49%) noncompensated physicians. For both Dexilant and Nexium, there was a significant correlation between the number (rho = 0.22, P < .001 and rho = 0.12, P < .001) and dollar amount (rho = 0.22, P < .001 and rho = 0.13, P < .001) of payments and the percentage of prescriptions written for the compensated drug. Industry payments for Nexium remained associated with rate of prescription even after generic esomeprazole became available. Conclusion Both the number and dollar amount of industry payments were associated with increased prescriptions for both Dexilant and Nexium. Although unable to show causality, this study suggests that industry payments may increase physician prescriptions of costly, brand-name drugs.