2018-05-04 from thestar.com

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, paid Canadian doctors nearly three-and-a-half times more money than it doled out to U.S. prescribers, according to a Star analysis of the drug maker’s physician payments adjusted for the countries’ populations.

Purdue Canada gave just over $2 million to Canadian health-care professionals in 2016 for services such as consulting and delivering speeches on conditions and treatments.

That same year, U.S.-based Purdue Pharma L.P. paid American physicians $5.53 million (Canadian), according to a U.S. government database showing the financial ties between Big Pharma and prescribers. (2016 is the only year payment data is publicly available for both countries.)

That means for every 1,000 residents, Purdue spent $58 on Canadian doctors compared to $17 in the U.S.

Another way to look at it: Purdue gave $24 for every Canadian physician, while its U.S. operations handed out a little under $6 for every American prescriber.

The discrepancy between Purdue’s Canadian and U.S. physician payments has doctors and drug safety advocates raising an alarm that the drug maker may be focusing its marketing efforts on Canadian doctors.

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