The PharmaCertify™ Team

Sing along won’t you? “Hooray for Hollywood, that screwy, bally hooey Hollywood.” Awards season is underway in Tinsel Town and as exciting as it is to root on your favorite actor, movie, singer or visual effects artist, seeing who is wearing this year’s swan dress on the red carpet is more fun. While we’re all waiting to see who will win at this weekend’s Screen Actors Guild awards this weekend, let’s take a look back at what walked down the red carpet of news last week, in this week’s News Week in Review.

Someone had to plaster on their “I’m not upset I lost” smile when judges refused to revive a whistleblower suit against Takeda. The U.S. 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that there was no evidence Takeda had caused false claims to be submitted for the heartburn drug, Kapidex. The whistleblower relied on statistical evidence to make his claim, and both courts agreed the evidence was general in nature and did not point to any specific instances where the law was violated

Restaurant owners and managers all around Massachusetts can be heard saying, “you like us, you really, really like us,” as they see the return of medical meal patrons after the state loosened the ban on meals provided outside a physician’s office. One restaurant owner says that although business is improving since the change in the law, he doesn’t expect to see it return to the levels seen prior to the law going into effect. Critics of the change in the law worry that the costs of these meals will be passed on to patients, and the stipulation that meals be “modest” is not sufficient.

While we all wait on the diva known as The Sunshine Act to take the stage, the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy has decided it will not require the submission of annual disclosure reports from wholesale drug distributors and manufacturers for 2012. The Board will ask the legislature to repeal the law requiring the reporting of physician spend. The gift ban will remain.

In recent years, the Academy has doubled the number of Best Picture nominees, and it seems that pay-for-delay deals are following suit, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC says the number of pay-for-delay deals jumped to 40 last year from 28 the previous year.

The winner of the “Color Me Shocked…Not” award is…<insert drum roll here> the authors of a study that showed medical students are not fazed by links their professors have with the industry. The study was conducted at a medical school that had recently adopted a policy forcing faculty to disclose conflicts of interest to their students. While students felt their professors were more likely to recommend or speak about a product when a relationship existed between the professor and a company, the majority felt that lectures were unbiased.

Well, that’s it for this week’s News in Review. Remember, if your 2013 compliance training premiere plans include mobile, PharmaCertify can help, with iPad-ready modules and research apps that put critical compliance content at your audience’s fingertips.

Have a great week everyone!