Julie Brill, who has had a long-standing interest in pharmaceutical industry pricing and marketing practices, has been nominated to be one of the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission.

President Obama made the nomination Nov. 16. Brill would serve a seven-year term, replacing Commissioner Pamela Harbour, whose term expired in September. The president also nominated Los Angeles-based commercial litigator Edith Ramirez to fill a commissioner vacancy.

If confirmed, Brill and Ramirez join an agency that has already significantly stepped up its scrutiny of health product marketing and reinforced its watchdog credentials with key appointments by the Obama administration.

Brill has spent the bulk of her career - from 1988 to 2009 - as Vermont's assistant attorney general for consumer protection and antitrust. In February, she moved to North Carolina, where she became senior deputy attorney general in charge of the consumer protection division.

In Vermont, she took a leading role in the state's efforts to curb certain pharmaceutical marketing practices, make drug pricing more transparent and publicize manufacturers' payments to physicians.

Vermont was one of the first states to require manufacturers to submit publicly available reports on their payments to physicians in the state, and Brill was a proponent of that project. The state also has a Web site disclosing prescription drug prices at pharmacies to help residents comparison-shop.

Brill worked on legislation creating a state law that prohibits entities from selling data or using prescriber-identifiable data to market drugs without prescriber consent, a law that is now being challenged in federal court (¹ Also see "Vermont's Prescriber Data Law Faces Tough Questions In Appeals Court" - Pink Sheet, 13 October, 2009.).

Brill has been deeply involved in some of the cases state attorneys general have filed as a group in the pharmaceutical area. In one notable example, she worked on cases brought against pharmacy benefit managers related to their switching of patients' prescriptions. Those resulted in settlements by Medco in 2004 and by Caremark and Express Scripts in 2008 (² Also see "Express Scripts Is Latest PBM To Ink Settlement With State Attorneys General" - Pink Sheet, 2 June, 2008.).

Vermont was involved in the recently settled investigation into Merck and Schering-Plough related to the claimed delayed release of negative data on the cholesterol drug Vytorin .

"Involved In Every Hot Topic" For State AGs

Anne Maher, an attorney who specializes in advertising and consumer protection regulation at Kleinfeld, Kaplan & Becker in Washington, said in an e-mail that Brill "has been a strong leader of the AGs - really the voice of the state AGs for 15 years. She has been involved in every hot topic that they have tackled, and particularly active in the prescription drug area - on antitrust issues, direct-to-consumer advertising and off-label use."

Among the items pending at FTC is a review of CVS Caremark business practices (³ Also see "FTC Investigating CVS Caremark Business Practices" - Pink Sheet, 9 November, 2009.). But it is unclear how far along that review might be by the time Brill arrives at the agency. Her nomination prompts a confirmation hearing by the Commerce Committee and requires Senate confirmation.

Maher said that while she expects Brill will focus on privacy issues - another of her specialties - at the commission, "from her perch as an FTC commissioner she will be able to influence case selection in a variety of areas, including pharmaceutical issues on the antitrust and consumer protection sides."

The other nominee, Ramirez, has specialized in intellectual property and complex commercial litigation.

The FTC set the stage for a step up in enforcement in April with the appointment of former Public Citizen litigator David Vladeck to a commissioner position and chief of the agency's consumer protection bureau (⁴ Also see "FTC Consumer Chief Vladeck’s Reputation Precedes Him" - Pink Sheet, 20 April, 2009.).

Since then, Vladeck and the commission have shown a heightened interest in dietary supplements, health claims for foods, and weight-loss claims in particular (⁵ Also see "FTC Testimonial Guide Moves Past "Results Not Typical," Enters Blog Era" - Pink Sheet, 12 October, 2009.).

The commission has also developed partnerships with FDA and other agencies to improve the effectiveness of enforcement activities (⁶ Also see "FTC Intensifies Health Claims Scrutiny, Enforcement Strategies" - Pink Sheet, 12 October, 2009.).

- Scott Steinke ( ⁷ s.steinke@elsevier.com )

Pharma Industry Watchdog Brill Nominated For FTC Commissioner

More from Archive

More from Pink Sheet