How do oncologists get money from chemo drugs?
I think it’s very rare for a pharma company to directly hand money over to an oncologist. That would be against the law in most civilized countries. What’s more common is that drug representatives offer incentives to doctors to consider using their company’s products. For example, the pharmaceutical company may offer the doctor a trip to a resort for a “seminar”. It becomes a gray area … if the company is covering the doc’s expenses only, it’s probably ok … if they pay for his whole family to accompany … probably not so ok. But I’m not so sure how much control the docs themselves have, especially in a hospital setting in large cities. My doc prescribes chemotherapy, most of which are decades-old formulations and which are certainly out of patent, so many companies make each type of chemo. The hospitals’ Purchasing group probably takes bids from pharma companies for supplying the hospital’s needs. Other treatments, such as Herceptin, Avastin, and others that are still under patent
