'Data Mining' For Drug Companies Goes To Courts

DAVE GRAM

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — The prescription drugs you take are on the minds of a lot of people: judges on two federal courts, legislators in several states, countless doctors and, at the center, the companies that make money by figuring out who's prescribing what.

"Data-mining" firms — which gather electronic information on the drugs prescribers order for their patients, then sell that information to pharmaceutical companies — have sued to block laws restricting their activities in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

At issue is the use by drug company "detailers" — the sales force that deals with doctors and other prescribers and tries to get them to use the company's products — of the information about doctors' prescribing habits. ...