Doctors who receive money from drugmakers related to a specific drug prescribe that drug more heavily than doctors without such financial ties, a new ProPublica analysis found. The pattern is consistent for almost all of the most widely prescribed brand-name drugs in Medicare, including drugs that treat diabetes, asthma and more.

The financial interactions include payments for delivering promotional talks, consulting and receiving sponsored meals and travel.

The 50 drugs in our analysis include many popular and expensive ones. Thirty-eight of the drugs have yearly costs exceeding $1,000 per patient, and many topped the list that are most costly for the Medicare Part D drug program.

Take Linzess, a drug to treat irritable bowel syndrome and severe constipation. From 2014 to 2018, the drug’s makers, Allergan and Ironwood, spent nearly $29 million on payments to doctors related to Linzess, mostly for meals and promotional speaking fees.

ProPublica’s analysis found that doctors who received payments related to Linzess in 2016 wrote 45% more prescriptions for the drug, on average, than doctors who […]