My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted. – Franz Kafka
Will Par Pharmaceutical Inc.’s First Amendment suit against FDA result in a new approach to battling government allegations of off-label marketing?
Par contends that the government is criminalizing it’s speech to healthcare professionals about the on-label use of its appetite suppressant Megace ES (megestrol acetate) in settings where doctors prescribe the drug for both approved and unapproved uses.
Par’s complaint, filed Oct. 14 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks a preliminary injunction against government enforcement of FDA labeling regulations on the grounds they are harming Par’s First Amendment rights by chilling protected speech.
Par’s suit states that physicians more frequently prescribe the drug to treat wasting in non-AIDS geriatric and cancer patients and that the majority of prescriptions for the drug are for off-label uses.
Par also seeks a declaratory judgment that it may speak about the approved use to physicians who could prescribe it for that use, even if they are more likely to prescribe the drug for off-label uses.
“Common sense dictates that the government cannot justify censoring a broad swath of truthful and valuable speech regarding lawful activity out of a desire to prevent other lawful activity,” a memorandum in support of the motion for preliminary injunction states. “And it is absurd to think that the government may imprison a person for engaging in truthful speech about a lawful activity that the government itself subsidizes.”
At issue in Par’s suit are provisions in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act concerning “intended use” of a drug and misbranding.
“If a manufacturer speaks about the on-label use of its drug in a setting where the manufacturer knows that physicians prescribe the drug off-label, the government interprets the FDA’s ‘intended use’ regulations to deem the manufacture to be expressing an ‘objective intent’ that physicians prescribe the drug off-label,” Par’s memorandum states.
Par says the government has advised the company that manufacturers should only talk to physicians in an off-label setting if there are “a sufficient number of patients being treated for whom the drug could be prescribed on-label,” but that the government has not provided any guidance as to what would constitute a sufficient number of on-label patients.
“The regime is also Kafkaesque. Manufacturers have no way of knowing whether, under the FDA’s regulations, they may speak to physicians who, for instance, prescribe the drug 20% on-label and 80% off-label, or to physicians with the reverse prescription ratio.”
In a press release announcing the suit Par said it hoped to “elicit tailored and constitutionally permissible regulatory guidance to ensure that physicians may be kept abreast of valuable, on-label information about prescription drugs to aid in their provision of quality and informed patient care.”
Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted. – Franz Kafka