The launch in the UK of Lurisidone began in August 2014.

My previous post on Lurasidone (Latuda) which has now been marketed in the UK followed the financial interests of one of the authors of the “Special article” in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

It has now crossed my mind, and here I must be very clear that I am speculating, that the British Journal of Psychiatry may have been paid to publish this “Special article”?

I have now looked at the details provided on Lutada to medical professionals by the makers SUNOVION

It is welcome that this new medication has fewer metabolic effects than currently available antipsychotics. It is worth reflecting that, when the “atypical” antipsychotics were first marketed, they were promoted as having fewer Extra-Pyramidal Side Effects (EPSEs) than existing antipsychotics. It later emerged that the atypical antipsychotics had considerable metabolic side-effects.

This is how Latuda is introduced:

Here are the “References” provided by its makers Sunovion. There are several key authors of studies cited along with “Latuda Summary of Product Characteristics”. I have previously covered Leslie Citrome. Another study author is well known as a Key Opinion Leader, Professor Stephen Stahl.

I recently posted about Professor Stahl after he gave keynote addresses to this summer’s British Association of Psychopharmacology Conference.

Professor Stahl’s payments dwarf the $181000 dollars given to Dr Leslie Citrome by the makers of Lutada. Professor Stahl’s OVERALL payments by 15 Pharmaceutical companies amounts to $3.58 million.

Evidence based medicine should include all evidence. This should include all financial conflicts of interest in those developing, researching and promoting new medications.

I do hope UK Psychiatrists are aware of all the evidence.

                     Update: January 2017

I received the above message from my secretary with the e-mail below from SUNOVION attached:

From: Margo Hepple [mailto:Margo.Hepple@quintiles.com]
Sent: 20 December 2016
Subject: FW: Sunovion virtual appointment

Nice speaking with you and thank you for your help.

Please find below some detail of the appointment I would like to make with Gordon. I would like to offer an update in physical health in mental health with regard to our antipsychotic treatment.

Sunovion recognise the heavy schedules and workloads healthcare professionals have to manage. In order to offer greater flexibility and convenience for your interactions with Sunovion, we have created an online meeting environment which can be accessed at your convenience with the support of our dedicated remote meetings team.

We can now arrange for one of our remote representatives to provide you with useful information about Latuda©(lurasidone) for the treatment of adults with schizophrenia at a time that is absolutely convenient to you via a straightforward remote call. 

www.meetsunovion.co.uk  is an online meeting room where a remote Sunovion representative can provide up-to-date information about Latuda through an interactive platform to augment a simultaneous telephone conversation.

All you need is a computer with internet access, a phone line and a time to suit you , for an approximately 15 minute discussion.

With kind regards,
Margo Hepple
Sunovion Key Account Manager

I replied to my secretary that I do not see Pharmaceutical Representatives. My secretary was though already aware of this and that I had previously raised a petition with the Scottish Government to consider introducing a Sunshine Act for Scotland.

On the 20th December 2016 I wrote a shared e-mail to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Association of Psychopharmacology (BAP) and the General Medical Council (GMC). I explained that I had just read the perspective of the out-going CEO of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the December Psychiatric Bulletin.

In my email of the 20th December 2016  I went on to express my concerns about conflation of marketing with “education” and  expressed my view that the ABPI voluntary register is anything but a “disinfectant”, rather that it gives a thin veneer of transparency.

I concluded: the risk is that rather than “realistic medicine” we have unrealistic medicine with over-medicalisation and associated harms on a wider scale. Inverse care then kicks in.

I asked politely if the Royal College of Psychiatrists, BAP or GMC were planning to do anything about this?

I only received a reply from the GMC. 

I reproduce this in full below:

From: General Medical Council
Sent: 20 January 2017
To: Peter J Gordon
Subject: RE: FW: Sunovion virtual appointment

Dear Dr Gordon,
Thank you for your email and sorry for the time it’s taken to respond.

As you know it’s our role to regulate the medical profession in the UK and as part of that role, we set the standards for the delivery of medical education and training. Although it is our role to regulate individual doctors, we do not have a role in regulating organisations and therefore cannot comment on any such policies to managing conflicts of interest.

We are clear in Good Medical Practice that ‘you must be honest in financial and commercial dealings with patients, employers, insurers and other organisations or individuals’ (paragraph 77) and ‘if faced with a conflict of interest, you must be open about the conflict, declaring your interest formally, and you should be prepared to exclude yourself from decision making’ (paragraph 79). We expand on this in our explanatory guidance Financial and commercial arrangements and conflicts of interest (2013) which includes principles on how to manage conflicts of interest should they arise in relation to making decisions about patient care and the commissioning of services.

I note your comments on the limitations of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) register, however we see this as a start to creating a culture of openness and worked closely with them in promoting the database through a blog for doctors on our website. You may also be interested to know that in April 2016 we hosted a meeting bringing together key interest groups from across the UK to discuss issues around conflicts of interest. One theme which came out of this meeting was the need for greater transparency and how we can best support doctors in achieving this through guidance.

Amongst other work in this area, we are undertaking a review of the information contained on the medical register; part of this review considers whether a future register should include information on doctors’ interests.  We consulted on this in 2016 and are now reviewing all of the responses. We also continue to discuss conflicts with all of our key interest groups including via our inter-regulatory group meetings with other professional regulators to ensure that this remains a high priority and to enable us to share good practice across the health professions.

We continue to work with doctors to ensure they are reminded of their professional responsibility to avoid conflicts of interest wherever possible, and to declare any conflicts formally and as early as possible.

Kind regards
Caroline Strickland
Policy Officer, GMC

I replied to the GMC as follows, copying in the Royal College of 
Psychiatrists and the British Association of Psychopharmacologists:

20th January 2017

Dear Caroline Strickland,
I am very grateful for this reply on behalf of the GMC.

I could give a very long list indeed of doctors who are not following paragraph 77 of “Good Medical Practice”. The GMC risk being seen to have guidance that is widely not being followed. This would also constitute a lack of Probity as required for Appraisal and Revalidation.

Yet, if I reported a long-list (I have tried before) I find that I could not do so anonymously. The reality of such reporting would be that my professional life would be severely affected with outcomes such as bullying, isolation and mischaracterisation.

I note what you say about the ABPI Register but this Register gives the illusion of transparency, because, as you know, many doctors who are significantly paid by industry do not declare. These doctors may be the doctors who are “educating” the rest of the medical profession (CPD-approved) as required by the GMC and the Royal College of Psychiatrists and other colleges for “Good Professional Standing”.

When I retire I will release all the information I have and will be clear that neither the GMC nor Royal Colleges have taken effective action here. The risk of patient harm is very real and there are many evidenced examples of where marketeering as “education” has led to harmful and dangerous prescribing or other interventions.

I understand the GMC has no role in regulating organisations such as BAP. I am very concerned about the scale of “education” being marketed by this organisation. BAP no longer answer communications from me and the RCPsych did not answer my e-mail below.

Who is accountable for a situation where the ethics and objectivity of science is widely compromised? Who is accountable for harm that may result?

I would urge you to take more robust action than is currently the case.

The Scottish Government undertook a Public Consultation on this issue: the public in majority concluded that ALL payments to healthcare workers and academics should be openly declared, in full, on an open and searchable register. The public concluded that this had to be MANDATORY.

I am writing in a personal capacity and not in any way for my employers. I will take this communication to my Appraisal which is in March 2017.

I look forward to response from GMC, RCPsych and BAP.

Your sincerely, Dr Peter J Gordon

UPDATE (February 2017): UK-wide promotion of LURASIDONE:

Personal comment:

I would suggest that it would be more accurate, in terms of 
science, to describe antipsychotics (of any chemical formulation) 
as acting on brain chemistry, rather than "treating the mind".

As you can see the REFERENCES provided in this “promotional brochure” are in small print and not so easy to read.

So here is an enlarged version that I have made from the original: in black and white (but the highlights matter):

In the public domain are the most significant recent financial payments made to Stephen Stahl and Leslie Citrome from the pharmaceutical industry. Both of whom have been part of the promotion of Lurasidone in the UK

In the references provided by Sunovion in this “promotional brochure” we have:

                      Herbert Y Meltzer

In the references provided by Sunovion in this “promotional brochure” we have:

                      Gregor Mattingly

who has been paid $1.04 million from the Pharmaceutical Industry since 2013:

In the references provided by Sunovion in this “promotional brochure” we have:

                     Sheldon Preskorn

who received nearly $112 in 2015 from the pharmaceutical industry:

Update: June 2017

Promotion in PROGRESS in Neurology and Psychiatry (“supplement”) by Dr Lars Hansen, Consultant Psychiatrist and Honorary Senior lecturer, Southampton University:

Steve Chaplin is cited as “medical writer” of the case notes. The following article of March 2013 “GMC: more detailed advice on good practice in prescribing” appears to be by him: