New Hampshire Privacy Case Could Have National Implications

A federal judge in New Hampshire on Monday heard closing arguments in a case involving a law that would prohibit the use of prescription data for marketing purposes.  Pharmacies after filling prescription orders often sell data about drugs and physicians, though typically not about patients, to health data companies that then create scorecards of physicians' drug preferences and resell that information to pharmaceutical companies.

Two health data companies -- IMS and Verispan -- are suing to block the New Hampshire law as an unconstitutional violation of their commercial rights. New Hampshire's attorney general maintains that the new law is a legal way to protect patient confidentiality and reduce high health care costs caused in part by pharmaceutical representatives who push costlier drugs.

The suit was filed following the passage of HB 1346 by the New Hampshire House and Senate.   The legislation declares prescription information shall not be used, transferred, licensed, or sold for any commercial purpose except for limited purposes.  The New Hampshire State Senate voted 22-0 in favor of the legislation sponsored by Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, who was moved to act by complaints from her husband, a doctor, about pharmaceutical sales agents who try to influence which drugs he dispenses.  The legislation also outlaws companies from marketing patient information on prescriptions.