{"id":6904,"date":"2010-02-04T22:08:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pharma-mkting.com\/did-cephalon-pay-james-mcmillen-101650\/"},"modified":"2019-02-21T01:22:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T01:22:09","slug":"did-cephalon-pay-james-mcmillen-101650","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/did-cephalon-pay-james-mcmillen-101650\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Cephalon Pay James Mcmillen $101,650 to Help Promote Actiq for Off-Label Use?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent post, I wondered why a doctor from Dillsberg, PA, a town with a total area of 0.8 square miles and only 2,063 people, would be the 5th highest paid physician on Cephalon’s list of payments to physicians. That doctor — James Mcmillen — received $101,650 in 2009 (see “Transparency Vs. Translucency in Reporting Physician Payments<\/a>“).<\/p>\n

Since I first posted this bit of information, I learned that:<\/p>\n

(1) Cephalon agreed to plead guilty to promoting painkiller Actiq, narcolepsy pill Provigil and the epilepsy treatment Gabitril for uses that weren\u2019t approved by FDA. As a result of the plea agreement, Cephalon was REQUIRED to post all payments it made to physicians in 2009 and quarterly thereafter.<\/p>\n

(2) Dr. James Mcmillen is a member of the National Fibromylgia Association (he’s listed on the Association’s Web site here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Could it be that Doctor Mcmillen was paid to promote Actiq for the treatment of fibromyalgia, which is a use not approved by the FDA?<\/p>\n

BTW, Actiq gets high ratings from patients for the treatment of “Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS)” on RevolutionHealth (see here<\/a>) — the Wisdom of the Crowd health web site founded by Steve Case (listen to this podcast interview of Jay Silverstein<\/a>, COO of Revolution Health).<\/p>\n

FURTHER THOUGHTS:<\/b> I have learned a few more interesting tidbits about Dr. Mcmillen’s relationships with the drug industry. In 1999, for example, Merck tried to “neutralize” Dr. Mcmillen because his message about the drug Vioxx was “consistently negative” (see this series of Merck emails<\/a>). “We need to neutralize this physician as soon as possible,” said Merck’s Arthritis & Analgesia Specialist, Thomas McCready.<\/p>\n

It appears that Dr. Mcmillen was, at the time, working for Searle, a company that co-marketed (with Pfizer) Celebrex, a product that competed with Vioxx before the latter drug was pulled from the market for safety reasons. <\/p>\n

In his email, Merck’s McCready listed all the work that Mcmillen was doing on behalf of Searle:<\/p>\n