The Stealth Marketing of Medical Devices: The Biotronik Example

We have frequently discussed the use of organized, deceptive stealth marketing campaigns to influence physicians to prescribe pharmaceuticals. Now more information is coming to light about similar campaigns to influence physicians to use particular medical devices

As reported in the New York Times, based on documents supplied apparently by a corporate whistleblower, here are some tactics used by a small German device manufacturer, Biotronik:

Seeding Trials

These are ostensibly clinical trials, but designed more to market than to discover meaningful data. We have discussed them in the context of drug marketing.

The message from cardiologists was loud and clear, according to a top executive at a heart device company. The doctors wanted implant makers to produce more clinical trials of devices to help them generate income from research fees.

To compete, 'we must be able to 'answer the bell,'' wrote Thomas V. Brown, an executive vice president at the American subsidiary of Biotronik, a small German firm that makes pacemakers and defibrillators.

Mr. Brown’s charge came in an e-mail last year to fellow Biotronik executives, one of scores of documents involving the company that offer a portrait of an implant industry where producers seek to influence the brand of device that patients receive long before a diagnosis.

The documents show, for example, that device makers recruit not only implant specialists as consultants but also general cardiologists who refer patients. Those cardiologists, called feeders in one of the documents, can benefit by enrolling the referred patients in a company-financed study that can pay a cardiologist up to $4,800 a patient.

A lawyer representing Biotronik, Christopher Myers, said Mr. Brown’s e-mail was sent around the same time that some Biotronik sales officials were asking the company to design 'unscientific studies' to compete with producers offering sham studies 'as a means of funneling money to doctors.'

Influencing Device Choice by Making Referring Doctors Consultants

The Times report stated that the company's recent increase in sales was due to

the company’s success in developing relationships with doctors who, in turn, can influence which brand of device a patient gets.

Here is an example of one type of such a relationship:

The company’s relationship with a general cardiologist in Tucson, Dr. Monty C. Morales, is the subject of several memos.

In mid-2008, Biotronik retained Dr. Morales as a consultant under an arrangement that paid him up to $2,000 a month, company records indicate. And about that same time, Dr. Morales, who does not implant devices, expressed strong opinions about the implant brand his patients should get, according to a report apparently written by a sales representative for a Biotronik distributor called Western Medical.

In that memo, Dr. Morales is described as saying that he would not refer patients to an implant specialist in his same Tucson-area practice, Dr. Darren Peress, unless Dr. Peress started implanting Biotronik devices.

'Currently, Peress does not get any of Morales’ business,' the memo stated. 'Monty will strongly support use and send Peress business if he uses Biotronik.'

Also,

Among the Tucson-area implant specialists to whom Dr. Morales apparently referred his patients was Dr. Benigno F. Decena III, the Western Medical report indicates. Internal Biotronik sales data indicates that Dr. Decena’s usage of the company’s products rose sharply in 2009.

During the 12-month period from February 2009 to January 2010, the monetary value of the Biotronik devices used by Dr. Decena reached $1.1 million, an eightfold increase from the previous 12-month period, data shows.

Influencing Device Choice by Making Device Implanters Consultants

Here is a more direct example of making physicians consultants to influence them to then themselves implant more product.

The Times recently detailed in an article how four implant specialists in Las Vegas sharply increased their use of Biotronik devices in mid-2008, about the same time they became consultants. Those doctors said that it was the quality of Biotronik’s devices, not the payments they had received, that had influenced their choice of implants. Whatever the reason, Biotronik’s revenues apparently skyrocketed. By early 2010, the cumulative monetary value of company devices used by those four physicians alone reached about $16 million, internal Biotronik sales data indicates. [Note: see our post by Cetona on this here.]

The documents point to similar outcomes elsewhere.

An implant specialist in Fullerton, Calif., Duane E. Bridges, became a consultant to Biotronik in mid-2008, company records indicate. The monetary volume of company products used by Dr. Bridges from early 2008 to early 2009 reached about $360,000, then jumped to $1.6 million over the next 12-month period, a greater than fourfold rise, the company data indicates.

Dr. Bridges did not respond to comment; also a lawyer, Anthony Willoughby, who said he represented Dr. Bridges could not be reached for comment.

Another implant specialist who became a company consultant in mid-2008, Dr. Michael Brodsky of Irvine, Calif., increased the dollar value of Biotronik devices he used over those two periods, Biotronik data indicate. The value of company products used by another specialist who became a Biotronik consultant in mid-2008, Dr. Prash Jayaraj of Burbank, Calif., also doubled, company data indicate.

Cultivating Nepotism

Finally, here is the use of influence via creating family members' conflicts of interests.

a widely used industry practice: the hiring by a device maker of a doctor’s spouse or other relative. For example, in plotting strategies to gain sales at one California hospital, Biotronik officials suggested that an implant specialist, whose son and wife both worked for a competitor, might be wooed if Biotronik offered him concessions 'such as studies or even the hiring of his son,' according to an internal company report.

Another company document discussed how the revenues of a sales official sharply dropped after his father, an implant specialist, died unexpectedly in an airplane crash

Summary

Thus, the set of documents the Times obtained suggested that one small device company used a set of tactics to increase sales by influencing doctors to use its products.  The tactics employed included seeding trials, hiring referring doctors as consultants to influence proceduralists to whom they referred to use the company's products, hiring proceduralists directly as consultants to influence them to use the products, and hiring relatives of doctors to influence them to use the products or persuade others to use the products.

There is every reason to suspect that such systematic stealth marketing campaigns are prevalent throughout commercialized health care. We have mainly discussed them in terms of the promotion of pharmaceuticals. The examples above suggest they may be used as often to promote medical devices. There is every reason to think they may also be used to promote other health care goods or services.

This latest set of examples brings up two important points.

Physicians, other health care professionals, and health care academics are frequently employed as consultants. These relationships seemed to be looked up on with much favor not only by those directly involved, but also by the supervisors of those involved who are academic or hospital/ health system employees. Even people who find fault with certain kinds of conflicts of interest affecting health care professionals seem less concerned about consulting relationships  For example, the often cited article by Brennan et al which called for more stringent academic policies on conflicts of interest, including banning small gifts from industry, would allow consulting as long as it were governed by a contract with "specific deliverables," (See our post here.)

Yet we have seen repeated examples of consultancies which seem more designed to market products than actually provide specific consulting advice. We also recently have seen how consulting relationships can cloak third-party strategies used in stealth advocacy campaigns (see post here). So all this would suggest that one should be very skeptical about any consulting relationships by health care professionals or academics unless the reason for and nature of the consulting is very clear, and very clearly not related to marketing or public relations.

Finally, note that many apologists for conflicts of interest affecting health care professionals and academics argue that these relationships are inevitable byproducts of the collaboration with industry needed to drive innovation (e.g., see this post.) We have argued that collaboration does not require industry to pay its professional or academic collaborators. The example above shows how conflicts of interest may be created deliberately by commercial firms for marketing purposes. Such relationships do not appear to be "collaboration" necessary for "innovation."

Health care professionals and educators should think again about whether accepting gifts or money from organizations which sell health care products or services is worth the doubts that such incentives create.  Even if the relationship was not designed to promote a product or service, the desire for continued payments and gifts can influence professional decisions or academic opinions.  Worse, the increasing evidence about the prevalence of stealth marketing and advocacy suggests that any gift or payment not clearly in reciprocity for a very well defined technical service is likely to be a deliberate part of such a campaign.  Is the money really worth the doubts about professionalism and trustworthiness it may create?