Zyprexa

It is the brand-specific nature of some programs that concerns some specialists.

Dr.

David S.

Sobel, medical director for patient education and health promotion in Northern California for Kaiser Permanente, a big health maintenance organization, said drug company compliance programs were not necessarily bad but that Kaiser preferred to run its own.

"If somebody's in a program for a certain statin and we change that statin, are they out of the program?

" Dr.

Sobel said, referring to cholesterol-lowering medication.

"If it goes generic, do they shut down the program?

" Dr.

John Abramson, a physician and author of "Overdosed America," said another potential problem was that medicines were overprescribed.

In such cases, compliance programs would be inducing people to keep taking pills they did not need.

Some specialists say there is a potential for abuse in the closer links being forged between pharmaceutical companies and their patients.

In the past, drug companies generally dealt only with doctors and insurers.

But organizers of the industry programs say that instead of bypassing the doctor, they are providing services like 24-hour-a-day call centers that many doctors cannot.

"We are an extension of the physician's office," said Kerr Holbrook, vice president for marketing at McKesson's specialty pharmaceuticals division, which runs the program tha...

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