Drug promotion disguised as school screening program - Genentech Inc.'s promotion of Protropin

Healthfacts, Feb, 1995

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the questionable marketing by Genetech Inc., of their human growth hormone drug Protropin which is approved to help short children with hormone deficiencies grow taller. The FTC is focusing on the drug company's funding of two charities: the Human Growth Foundation in Falls Church, Virginia, and the Magic Foundation, in Oak Park, Illinois. Both non-profit organizations sponsored height screening in schools, suggesting that children found to be short for their age visit a doctor. The two groups reportedly received most of their funding from Genetech and much of the remainder was contributed by Eli Lilly, maker of the competing drug Humatrope (The Wall Street Journal, 10 January 1995).

Genetech, a biotechnology leader known for its aggressive marketing, controls 70% of the market for human growth hormone and sells the drug to 14,000 patients in the U.S. A 1992 National Institutes of Health study estimates this may be double the number of children who actually have the deficiencies for which the drug was developed and approved. The company has previously been found guilty of paying kickbacks disguised as "research grants" to doctors to get them to prescribe the drug (HealthFacts, October 1994). One doctor suspected of receiving kickbacks prescribed $2 million's worth of Protropin and advertised for patients on television.

Genetech has stopped funding the screening of school children pending a review by a group convened by the National Academy of Science. The company maintains that over 90 percent of the children taking their drug do have hormone deficiencies and are not being given the drug for cosmetic reasons. But this is challenged by Jess Thoene, chairman of the National Organization of Rare Disorders, who believes that Genetech is either promoting Protropin for unapproved uses or doctors are prescribing the drug inappropriately.