BIG PHARMA: A nuevos tiempos a "lavar la cara..."

The pharmaceutical industry, confronting

• sluggish growth,
  
• low prestige and
  
• the prospect of more-aggressive government oversight,
  

is moving on several fronts to burnish its image and align itself rhetorically with the health reform goals of President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress.

On the immediate horizon are two proposed regulatory changes that would dramatically alter how the industry markets its products.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) intends to refile a bill requiring drug and biotech companies to report to the federal government all gifts or payments to physicians for research, speeches, travel, consulting or anything else. Companies failing to report would face financial penalties. The bill is in response to lavish industry spending, which critics maintain creates conflicts of interest for doctors.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, supports legislation giving the FDA power to selectively ban direct-to-consumer advertising in the initial years a medication is on the market.

Mas...