Drug Info Companies Sue to Block State Laws - WSJ

IMS Health, Wolters Kluwer Health and Verispan — which buy records of doctors’ prescribing habits, then crunch and sell the data to the drug industry — filed lawsuits yesterday against Maine and Vermont, where laws restricting the collection of prescription data are set to go into effect on Jan. 1 of next year.

“The new laws in Vermont and Maine will have the same unintended consequences as the one in New Hampshire, blocking vital healthcare information from public view while doing nothing to drive down prescription drug costs or improve the health and well-being of citizens,” an IMS vice president said in this statement. The companies also noted that the patient data they collect is anonymous — it doesn’t identify individual patients by name.