Court denies bid to limit Vt. law on prescription data

A federal appeals court in New York has denied a request by three drug data-miners and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America to block a Vermont law limiting the use of prescription-drug data to profile the prescribing patterns of Vermont physicians.

The law, which goes into effect July 1, prohibits the use of a physician’s prescribing information for marketing without the physician’s consent.

Appellants IMS Health; Verispan, which was subsequently sold to SDI Health; Source Healthcare Analytics, a subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer Health; and PhRMA had asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an injunction, but the court ruled the appellants had not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their case, according to the court order, dated Friday.

In a related case, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Boston appeals court decision against IMS Health and Verispan. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled in November upholding a New Hampshire law. The law limits the commercial use of prescription information containing patient- and prescriber-identifiable data to “pharmacy reimbursement; formulary compliance; care management; utilization review by a healthcare provider, the patient’s insurance provider or the agent of either; healthcare research; or as otherwise provided by law.”

Filing “friend of the court” briefs supporting IMS and Verispan in the New Hampshire case were the eHealth Initiative, the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, SureScripts and Wolters Kluwer Health.

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