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1 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

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3 AGENDA ITEM PAGE

4 Opening Remarks - Chairman Jon Leibowitz 5

5 Workshop Framing Remarks - Stephanie A. Wilkinson 12

6 Introductory Presentations

7 Dr. Douglas G. Aspros 17

8 Dr. Paul D. Pion 25

9 Panel 1: Distribution of Pet Medications 41

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11 Panel 2: Portability of Prescription Pet

12 Medications 134

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14 Panel 3: Lessons Learned from the Contact

15 Lens Industry 212

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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

2 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

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6 WORKSHOP

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8 COMPETITION & CONSUMER PROTECTION ISSUES

9 IN THE PET MEDICATIONS INDUSTRY

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12 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2012

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15 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

16 601 NEW JERSEY AVENUE, N.W.

17 WASHINGTON, D.C.

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S

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3 MS. WILKINSON: Good morning. Welcome to the

4 FTC's Workshop on Competition and Consumer Protection

5 Issues in the Pet Medications Industry. My name is 

6 Stephanie Wilkinson and I am an attorney advisor in the

7 FTC's Office of Policy Planning. Before we get started, 

8 I need to go over some administrative details.

9 First, please turn off or place in the silent

10 mode any cell phones, Blackberries or other electronic

11 devices.

12 Second, if you leave the building for any reason

13 during the day, you will have to go back through

14 security. So, please bear that in mind and plan ahead

15 so that we can stay on schedule.

16 Third, please try to avoid having conversations

17 in the hallway directly outside the auditorium while

18 panels are in session. The background noise from the

19 hallway carries over into this room and sometimes

20 disrupts the discussions that we're having. Also, the

21 microphones that we have set up are very sensitive. So,

22 some of the conversations that happen in the hallway may

23 be picked up by the court reporters or by the live

24 webcast. So, fair warning on that.

25 Fourth, the restrooms are located out in the
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1 lobby, behind the elevator banks. There are signs to

2 indicate where they are, but if you go out to the

3 security guard's desk, the restrooms are to your left.

4 Fifth, in the unlikely event that an emergency

5 occurs and the building alarms go off, please proceed

6 calmly to the main exit in the lobby, and assemble

7 across the street on the sidewalk in front of the steps

8 of Georgetown Law School. Hopefully it won't be raining

9 too hard should that happen. At that point the security

10 guards will let us know when it's safe to return to the

11 building.

12 Lastly, I would like to remind all presenters

13 and panelists to speak directly into the microphone so

14 that everyone can clearly hear your remarks. If anyone

15 has any questions throughout the day, please feel free

16 to ask the people wearing the FTC staff badges or the

17 people at the registration desk and we will be glad to

18 help you.

19 We will be conducting moderated panel

20 discussions today. If members of the audience would

21 like to submit questions to the panelists, you will need

22 to obtain a question card. These are located on the

23 table in the hallway and you can pick one up during the

24 breaks.

25 FTC staff will be live tweeting today's
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1 workshop. Our Twitter handle is @FTC. You may tweet

2 questions and comments to our Twitter handle @FTC with

3 the hashtag #FTCpets. You may also submit questions and

4 comments via the FTC's Facebook page at

5 www.Facebook.com/FederalTradeCommission.

6 To open today's workshop, I would like to

7 introduce FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. During his tenure

8 at the FTC, Chairman Leibowitz has demonstrated

9 leadership in examining complex competition and consumer

10 protection issues in health care markets. Consistent

11 with this interest, Chairman Leibowitz suggested that

12 the Office of Policy Planning conduct research into the

13 pet medications industry. He has been very supportive

14 of our efforts to organize this workshop, and remains

15 committed to protecting the American consumer, including

16 their beloved pets.

17 Chairman Leibowitz?

18 CHAIRMAN LEIBOWITZ: Wow, I just want to say how

19 appreciative we are that so many of you got here,

20 despite the inclement weather and difficult traffic

21 patterns this morning. So, thank you.

22 Welcome, everybody, to the FTC's Workshop on

23 Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in the Market

24 for Pet Medications. I have personally been looking

25 forward to this workshop, because like the majority of
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1 Americans, I own a pet. He is a shelter dog named Tank

2 and he is truly a member of my family, of our family.

3 When Tank was a puppy, I once brought him here

4 to work with me at the Commission and I thought it was a

5 lot of fun. Now, Tank did, too, and he certainly

6 enjoyed himself barking and running around my office and

7 the adjacent corridors. Later, I learned that there was

8 a deposition taking place just down the hall, and

9 apparently the lawyers thought Tank's barking was

10 annoying. Now, it seems to me that a puppy barking

11 would be preferable to the barking of the objections of

12 the lawyers at a deposition, but --

13 All right, I'm sorry, I know it's early in the

14 morning, but that was a joke, you're going to have to

15 laugh. Since then, by the way, I have pretty much left

16 Tank at home. I wanted to bring him with me today, but

17 instead I brought a picture of him to show you, and here

18 he is. Is that cute or what? And you can see in the

19 photo, he's in front of the flag, because he holds a

20 position of some importance in the dog world. Anyway,

21 there he is.

22 Once in a while, we have a consent decree here

23 at the FTC regarding animal medications, for example,

24 in Pfizer's acquisition of Wyeth in 2009. But on most

25 days, it seems that pets and the FTC just don't mix.
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1 Today, however, they do, of course, because we're going

2 to talk about competition and consumer protection issues

3 relating to the distribution of pet medicines, and pet

4 medications.

5 Judging by the variety of pet products that are

6 now available in any number of retail outlets, pets are

7 very important to American consumers. For example,

8 during a recent visit to a local Costco store, we were

9 able to purchase this box of Frontline Plus for a very

10 competitive price. How many of you know about Frontline

11 Plus? Of course, because you have dogs and hopefully

12 the Frontline Plus has taken care of the flea, flea egg

13 larvae, tick or chewing lice. What is chewing lice?

14 How many of you know what chewing lice is? Because I

15 don't know that and I don't want to know it.

16 There's a huge convenience, of course, of being

17 able to buy a product like this in the same cost-cutting

18 retail outlet where so many Americans shop.

19 Among the questions we're going to ask today,

20 are whether consumers benefit from being able to

21 purchase pet medications at retail outlets. In

22 particular, I think the Commission is interested in

23 knowing whether competition from retail outlets results

24 in lower prices for pet medications, as it does for so

25 many other products that we buy. Unlike human medicine,
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1 which is supported by both public and private insurance,

2 and reimbursement, pet medicines are largely paid for by

3 consumers out of their own pocket. So, today, we hope

4 to examine some of the options that are available to

5 consumers to help them manage the cost of pet care and

6 discuss some proposals that have been made to give

7 consumers more choices when buying pet medications.

8 Here's what we know: And I learned this,

9 actually, as we were preparing for this workshop.

10 Sixty-two percent of U.S. households own a pet, and our

11 national pet population includes more than 78 million

12 dogs and more than 86 million cats, and sometimes they,

13 of course, even live in the same house. American

14 consumers spend more than $50 billion a year on their

15 pets, including nearly $7 billion a year for

16 over-the-counter and prescription pet medications.

17 And here's something else we know: More and

18 more, consumers are able to purchase pet medications

19 from sources other than their veterinarians. Some pet

20 medications are available over-the-counter without a

21 prescription, and even for prescription medications,

22 consumers may be able to obtain a written prescription

23 from their vet that they can use to buy pet medicines in

24 an online or brick-and-mortar retail pharmacy. But that

25 information isn't always volunteered, by the way.
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1 Still, an increasing array of options for

2 consumers to purchase their pet medications has begun to

3 lead, we believe, to lower prices and increase consumer

4 choice, certainly in a few pet medicines. While this

5 market may be becoming more competitive, it clearly has

6 a way to go. We have heard that many pet medicine

7 manufacturers choose to distribute their products only

8 through veterinarians, so retailers can't purchase these

9 products directly from the manufacturer. As a result,

10 some retailers use secondary distributors.

11 Take, for example, our box of Frontline. Now,

12 this was purchased, as I said, at a local Costco store.

13 And we don't exactly know how Costco or other retailers

14 acquire Frontline because we do know that the

15 manufacturer publicly denies selling the product

16 directly to non-veterinarians. We also know that this

17 Frontline was priced about 20 percent or more below the

18 prices of some local veterinarians.

19 Now, this may be so, for example, this

20 three-month supply at Costco costs about $37.99. And the

21 veterinary prices ranged, it was a small sample of five

22 veterinarians, one veterinarian priced it at or below

23 the Costco price, four priced it above, one priced it 20

24 percent above. So, the prices ranged up to $48.50 for I

25 think that's for a three-month supply. At Costco,
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1 again, $37.99 for a three-month supply.

2 So, again, this may be competition, or this

3 mystery of gray market distribution may be leading to

4 increased prices for consumers. I think it's a pure

5 distribution system and we just want to learn more about

6 it.

7 We have also heard that complex, cumbersome, and

8 sometimes antiquated state and federal laws may be

9 restricting competition in the pet medicine market. In

10 fact, a major national retailer has told me that it

11 wants to enter this market, and it would, but for the

12 crazy-quilt patchwork with state licensing and

13 regulatory requirements. Although many or even all of

14 these regulations may have once had sensible health and

15 safety justifications, some now may no longer be in the

16 best interest of Americans and our pets.

17 Today, our panelists, and it is a terrific,

18 terrific group of panelists, who include veterinarians,

19 animal drug manufacturers, distributors,

20 brick-and-mortar and online retail pharmacies, pharmacists,

21 animal welfare advocates, academics, economists and

22 lawyers, of course this is Washington, so we will have

23 lawyers, will explore the costs and benefits of

24 consumers getting a written prescription from their

25 veterinarian that they can fill wherever they choose,
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1 say at a grocery store pharmacy or an online veterinary

2 pharmacy. We will also explore whether the consumers

3 are able to verify that the products they buy at those

4 retail outlets are the same medicines that they could

5 buy from their veterinarian and whether there are any

6 safety risks with purchasing these products from retail

7 outlets.

8 We will also hear about restrictions on the

9 distribution of some pet medications by manufacturers or

10 by states, and how these business practices may limit

11 their availability. And by having this dialogue, we

12 hope to educate consumers, and we hope to educate

13 ourselves about changes occurring in the marketplace,

14 ones that may create new opportunities for consumers to

15 obtain high quality, low-cost medical treatment for

16 their pets.

17 So, let me thank our panelists for coming to

18 Washington to share their experiences with us. I know

19 some of you have come great distances, and let me also

20 thank hundreds of industry participants and consumers

21 who have submitted comments in advance to our workshop,

22 that was really terrific.

23 For our audience here at the conference center

24 and for those watching on our webcast, we hope you sit,

25 stay, I'm not going to go too far into that, I am not going
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1 to say don't bark at each other, but don't roll over

2 either. I'm just going to say we hope you sit, stay,

3 and enjoy the discussion.

4 We thank you all for coming here, we really do

5 appreciate it. I am going to turn it over. Stephanie,

6 are you coming up? Great, I'll give this to you.

7 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Chairman Leibowitz.

8 Many people have asked us why is the FTC

9 interested in the pet medications industry, and why are

10 we conducting this workshop? We have learned over the

11 past many months that the market for pet medications is

12 in flux. Industry stakeholders have noted that consumer

13 demand for pet medications has grown dramatically over

14 the past decade. Manufacturers have introduced many new

15 products to the market.

16 During this time period, new distribution models

17 have also emerged for pet medications, including online

18 retail pharmacies, such as 1-800-PetMeds and Drs. Foster&

19 Smith, as well as brick-and-mortar retail pharmacies,

20 such as Target, Walgreens and several large grocery

21 store chains. Generic products have also been

22 introduced into the pet medications industry, although

23 perhaps not to the same extent as what we've seen with

24 human medications.

25 We are interested in exploring the competitive
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1 impact that these changes have had on the market for pet

2 medications, and what this means for consumers. To help

3 us better understand these issues, we are pleased to

4 bring together a broad spectrum of industry experts to

5 serve as presenters and panelists for our workshop who

6 will offer diverse and important perspectives.

7 We will begin this morning with two introductory

8 presentations that should help set the stage for our

9 panel discussions. During these presentations, we will

10 learn about the veterinary profession, including the

11 importance of the relationship that veterinarians have

12 with pet owners and their pets, particularly within the

13 context of diagnosing the condition of pets, prescribing

14 medications and providing follow-up care. We will also

15 learn about the various options that consumers have for

16 purchasing pet medications, and about how the various

17 distribution models for pet medications work.

18 During our first panel, we hope to explore two

19 categories of distribution practices that appear to be

20 used in the pet medications industry, the first being

21 exclusive distribution by manufacturers through the

22 veterinary channel, and the second being exclusive

23 dealing arrangements between manufacturers and

24 distributors. Ultimately, we are interested in

25 understanding how both of these distribution practices
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1 affect the choices that consumers have when purchasing

2 pet medications, including the scope of products offered

3 to consumers, where consumers are able to purchase

4 products, and the prices that consumers have to pay. In

5 addition, we are interested in understanding

6 whether there are product safety and dispensing safety

7 issues that consumers should be aware of when making

8 decisions about where to purchase pet medications.

9 After lunch, there will be a second panel

10 discussion regarding the ability of consumers to obtain

11 written, portable prescriptions from their

12 veterinarians. When a pet dog or cat needs medication

13 that requires a prescription, the pet owner often buys

14 that medicine from the veterinarian at the time of the

15 exam. But consumers also purchase a substantial amount

16 of pet medications from retail pharmacies, particularly

17 long-term maintenance drugs such as heartworm

18 preventatives and diabetes medications. In order to make

19 these purchases, consumers must be able to obtain a written,

20 portable prescription from their veterinarian. Some states

21 require veterinarians to provide portable prescriptions, 

22 while other states leave this to the veterinarian's

23 discretion.

24 Anecdotally, we have heard that many

25 veterinarians give clients prescriptions upon request,
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1 but we've also heard that some veterinarians refuse to

2 provide prescriptions to clients even where state law

3 requires that they do so. There is a bill pending in

4 Congress, H.R. 1406, that is called the Fairness to Pet

5 Owners Act which would require veterinarians in all

6 states to give a written prescription, regardless of

7 whether they request it. We are hoping to discuss the

8 pros and cons of this legislative proposal during this

9 second panel.

10 We have also heard that there may be safety

11 issues with pharmacists that are untrained in veterinary

12 pharmacology dispensing pet medications, such that

13 veterinarians may be concerned about giving clients

14 portable prescriptions if they believe there is a risk

15 that retail pharmacies do not dispense the medications

16 in a safe and appropriate manner. We are interested in

17 better understanding all of these issues today.

18 Finally, there will be a third panel discussion

19 about whether we can learn any lessons from the contact

20 lens industry about the effects of restricted

21 distribution practices and prescription portability on

22 consumer markets. We intend to examine the similarities

23 and differences between the contact lens and pet

24 medications industries, and the degree to which the

25 evolution of the contact lens industry provides a
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1 reliable basis for predicting the potential consumer

2 cost savings and non-price benefits that might result

3 from eliminating vertical restrictions for the

4 distribution of pet medications and empowering pet

5 owners with prescription portability.

6 We are examining the vertical restraints on

7 distribution and prescription portability issues that

8 once characterized the contact lens industry. In 2003,

9 Congress passed legislation to give consumers a federal

10 right to written prescriptions for their contact lenses.

11 Furthermore, vertical restraints on the distribution of

12 contact lenses were eliminated during this time period

13 through litigation efforts by several states attorneys

14 general. As a result of these changes in the market,

15 consumers today have many more choices for buying

16 contact lenses. Some have suggested that requiring

17 prescription portability and addressing restricted

18 distribution practices for pet medications would

19 potentially have similar benefits in terms of more

20 consumer choices and more price competition.

21 To conclude, I would like to thank everyone for

22 attending today's workshop, including those who are

23 viewing the live webcast. In particular, I would also

24 like to thank our distinguished presenters and panelists

25 for their participation, as they have spent a
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1 significant amount of time preparing for today's

2 workshop.

3 We also appreciate all of the public comments

4 that we have received so far, and to ensure that

5 everyone has an opportunity to submit comments, we have

6 extended the comment period to November 1st. We

7 strongly encourage everyone to submit written statements

8 if they have not already done so.

9 Now, I would like to introduce Dr. Douglas

10 Aspros, who will be making the first presentation of the

11 day. Dr. Aspros is the president of the American

12 Veterinary Medical Association, and a companion animal

13 practitioner.

14 Dr. Aspros?

15 (Applause.)

16 DR. ASPROS: If I had realized I could have brought

17 pictures of my animals, I would have done that, but they

18 didn't tell me that was an option.

19 I am Dr. Doug Aspros, I am the president of the

20 American Veterinary Medical Association, and a companion

21 and exotic animal practitioner in Westchester County,

22 New York, part of the New York City metro area.

23 AVMA has been asked to set the stage for this

24 discussion today at the workshop to present the

25 ecosystem in which companion animals and their owners
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1 find medical services, including the dispensing of

2 animal drugs. As you shall see, this is a wide, divergent 

3 and fragmented system, on all sides, including the client,

4 the patient and the providers.

5 A little bit about AVMA. AVMA has a little over

6 82,000 members, which comprises about 83 percent of all

7 the veterinarians in the United States. About 61

8 percent of them practice on companion animals, that

9 means that at least part of their practice is on

10 companion animals. If you look at this pie chart, some of 

11 the companion animal practitioners are in what we call mixed

12 practice, meaning that there are some livestock patients

13 that are being cared for in the practice, as well as

14 companion animals. Remember, these are self-reported 

15 numbers. The figures may not quite add up, nearly 25 

16 percent of our members don't list a species affiliation, 

17 either because they don't practice clinical medicine, or 

18 because they don't like to fill out surveys.

19 About two-thirds of households in the U.S. owned

20 one or more pets in 2011. Of those pet-only households,

21 almost two-thirds own more than one pet. All of these

22 data come from the AVMA's U.S. Pet and Demographic

23 Survey Book from 2012. It is the largest scale survey

24 of U.S. households conducted every five years and

25 there's some data I'll present a little later on that
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1 comes from the same studies.

2 These patients, these veterinarians, practice in

3 approximately 25,000 different practices. We said

4 earlier, there are about 50,000, roughly, small

5 animal -- I'm going to switch back and forth between

6 companion and small animal. Companion animals are for

7 our purposes dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, ferrets,

8 rabbits and rodents, but inside of AVMA, when we talk

9 about companion animals, horses that don't work,

10 pleasure horses, are considered companion animals, but

11 for the purpose of today, I don't think we're talking

12 about horses in any way.

13 These 50,000 veterinarians provide services in

14 25,000 or more practices, meaning that the average size

15 practice has one veterinarian, since there are multiple

16 practices with multiple veterinarians. These practices 

17 are quite diverse. They're diverse in the size of the 

18 practice, the number of veterinarians and staff. In 

19 the species that are catered to, we talked about how wide 

20 the companion animal practice could be, but there are 

21 practices that only do cats, there are practices that do 

22 just cats and dogs, there are practices that do only birds 

23 and exotic species.

24 These practices are in rural, suburban and urban

25 settings, all of which provide different resources and
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1 opportunities both for the practice and their clientele.

2 Mobile clinics to multi-practice sites. So,

3 veterinarians can be one person in a car or a truck,

4 they can be large, large, large practices. Primary care

5 to specialty care. Veterinarians, by and large, in

6 companion animal practice provide general care, meaning

7 that veterinarians do everything from taking care of

8 happy and well puppies and kittens to major surgeries

9 and, of course, at the end, perhaps to euthanasia.

10 Specialty care these days is on the rise. There

11 are more and more specialty practices where

12 veterinarians do just what they do, just ophthalmology,

13 just surgery, and not provide general care. And, of

14 course, routine care and emergency care. One of my

15 practices does just after-hours, weekend and emergency

16 care, no primary care at all. And then finally, private

17 to corporate to not-for-profit to university practices.

18 So, these are the kinds of animals we're talking

19 about, dogs and cats and birds, ferrets, rabbits,

20 rodents and reptiles. The total veterinary visits, and 

21 these are every five years, again this is from the AVMA's 

22 U.S. Pet Demographic Surveys. The number of veterinary 

23 visits for dogs has been going up as dog ownership has as

24 well. The number of cat visits, particularly over the

25 past ten years, has not only peaked, but has been on the
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1 way down, and there are a lot of reasons for that, some

2 of which we don't understand. The total visits for

3 birds has been on the decline, and bird ownership,

4 actually, has been on the decline. This slide shows the 

5 mean veterinary visits per year. The average dog visits 

6 the veterinarian about one and a half times a year. The 

7 average cat doesn't get to the veterinarian every year. 

8 Birds get there when they actually have problems. And 

9 specialty, meaning all of the other kinds of exotic 

10 animals, even less than that, even fewer times than that.

11 So, we're talking about veterinarians and drugs.

12 So, what do veterinarians know, how do veterinarians get

13 educated to do the services, provide the services that

14 we do? Veterinary education programs are accredited by

15 the AVMA's Council on Education, which is a member of

16 the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, under

17 the authority of the USDE. Most or all college curricula

18 include one or more veterinary pharmacology courses.

19 While pharmacy is not mentioned by name in the

20 standards for accreditation, the basic and applied

21 principles of pharmacology are covered throughout the

22 four years of the curriculum, in both pre-clinical and,

23 of course, in the clinical years of programs. Students

24 receive a firm foundation in biology, biochemistry,

25 pharmacology, medicine and therapeutics in a wide range
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1 of species. At the end, in the licensing test, the North

2 American Veterinary Licensing Exam covers material on

3 therapeutics in dogs, cats, pigs, horses, cows, birds

4 and exotic pet species.

5 Veterinarians operate in all jurisdictions under

6 what's called the VCPR, the Veterinarian-Client-Patient7 Relationship. The VCPR is a recognized obligation both

8 in the AVMA's Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics

9 and in state and federal law. The VCPR requires

10 sufficient knowledge of the patient and when we're

11 talking about companion animals, in almost all cases,

12 examination; the veterinarian advising the client;

13 diagnosing and prescribing; the client's election to

14 follow the veterinarian's advice; the veterinarian's

15 obligation to keep written records, and to provide

16 information and options for emergency care and

17 follow-up.

18 To put this in context, in routine veterinary

19 practice, about 17 percent of revenues -- now we're

20 talking revenues, not bottom line -- in companion animal

21 exclusive practices are Rx drugs, and another five

22 percent are non-Rx drugs and pet products. And this

23 varies to some extent by species. If you look at dogs, 

24 it's not that drugs have been over the past 25 years 

25 actually a decreasing source of practice revenues, as 
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1 physical exams, vaccines and laboratory tests and other

2 diagnostics have become a more important part of 

3 veterinary practice. For cats, the same thing holds 

4 true. Cats have been vaccinated less often, if you 

5 look at the numbers over the past ten years. And so 

6 more of what veterinarians do are physical examinations 

7 and all of the services there attendant to diagnosing. 

8 And for birds, most of what we do is examinations, and 

9 when we look at grooming there, it's mostly nail 

10 trimming.

11 How do veterinarians get drugs? Well, they get

12 them two ways: They either get them directly from the

13 manufacturer or through a distributor. The

14 manufacturers may have several distributors that they

15 work with, but we'll go through that later. I think that

16 a number of other presenters will talk about how that

17 works.

18 Regulation and oversight of the veterinary

19 practitioners, and Adrian Hochstadt will be talking

20 further about this, but just to set the stage for it,

21 licensure requirements for veterinary practices are set

22 by the states. State licensing boards have the

23 authority to suspend or revoke a veterinarian's license

24 for unprofessional conduct or other infractions. The

25 state veterinary medical boards, of course, enforce the
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1 state practice acts, examine prospective licensees, set

2 the requirements, define unprofessional conduct,

3 investigate breaches and, of course, discipline

4 violators.

5 If consumers have complaints, if clients have

6 complaints, they have many avenues to have their

7 complaints heard. They can take complaints of

8 negligence or other unprofessional conduct to a wide

9 variety of places, including the state licensing board,

10 state veterinary medical associations, the state AGs,

11 departments of consumer affairs, and even to local or

12 state courts.

13 Veterinarians have, in all states, as part of

14 veterinary practice, the authority to dispense drugs and

15 pharmaceuticals for their patients. And, of course,

16 veterinary prescribing and dispensing are also covered

17 under regulations from FDA and DEA.

18 Finally, veterinary clinics are just one of many

19 channels for pharmaceuticals sold in the U.S. to

20 companion animals and their owners. Please keep in mind

21 as we go through this day that veterinarians primarily

22 dispense drugs and pharmaceuticals to ensure the health

23 and welfare of their animal patients. We would be wise

24 to remember this dictum as we go through the rest of

25 today's presentations.
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1 Thank you.

2 (Applause.)

3 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Dr. Aspros.

4 Our next presentation will be given by Dr. Paul

5 Pion, president and co-founder of the Veterinary

6 Information Network.

7 Dr. Pion?

8 DR. PION: Good morning.

9 So, I have been asked to give an overview of how

10 medications get to consumers, and a look at how the market 

11 has evolved. So, the first question I asked was, why me? 

12 Probably the least likely person in this room to be 

13 giving this presentation. I'm guessing nobody else 

14 wanted to give it.

15 I've never worked in either drug manufacturing

16 or distribution, and I'm actually a former academic and

17 researcher, and currently the co-founder and president

18 of Veterinary Information Network, which is a purely

19 subscription-based information service. You can think

20 of a mixture between Google and Facebook for

21 veterinarians. And we actually accept no advertising

22 and no sponsorship, purely supported by the membership

23 fees of our colleagues.

24 My background really is and my passions are in

25 medicine and information, the generation, quality and
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1 delivery of that information.

2 So, VIN, as part of our services we offer our own

3 news service, the VIN News Service, and we did some

4 articles. The Chairman, who I thank for giving my talk

5 before I gave it, alluded to the fact that there is

6 diversion of drugs from the prescribed and official

7 supply chains, and our news service did some

8 investigative reporting into that gray market diversion,

9 and I think that Stephanie and Elizabeth read those

10 articles and contacted us and that's how we got here.

11 So, my disclosures for conflict of interest, I'm

12 certainly pro-veterinary, pro-pet owner, pro-patient,

13 pro-fairness and pro-informed choice. Most of the

14 lecturing I do is on information, and I look at

15 information as its own economy. It's got manufacturers,

16 distributors and consumers on the wholesale and retail

17 level, and to convert that to a slide for this talk, we

18 just had to look at pet medications certainly have the

19 same players and channels. These are the players that 

20 I consider play a part in the information economy of 

21 veterinary medicine, and if we look at pet medications, 

22 then we would add the drug retailers, both online and 

23 big box type.

24 When we're looking at any economy, we should be

25 looking at in our situation the goals, what's the
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1 currency we use, what are the ethics and what's at

2 stake? And for information, I'm very much interested in

3 what's the quantity of that information, what's causing

4 us to generate more or less, and what's the quality of

5 that information? And when we're talking about pet

6 medications, I hope we also very much consider the

7 safety issues. In any economy, it's simple -- we all 

8 learn it's simple supply and demand. And for pet 

9 medications, certainly we're here to talk about how 

10 that affects pricing.

11 I had to do some Googling to figure out the size

12 of this market, and if I just look at individual, I've

13 heard between $6 and $10 billion as an estimate of the

14 market. I've heard the human market is up to about $250

15 billion. So, and if you look at this, looking at a

16 couple of companies, and there's people in the room who

17 can tell us these numbers certainly more accurately than

18 I can. Just looking at Pfizer Animal Health, we're

19 talking a couple of percent. This animal health part

20 also includes livestock and all the other animals that

21 don't include what we're talking about. So, I think

22 we're down in the one to two percent of what the human

23 market would be.

24 What products are we talking about? Well, for

25 the most part, everybody here is interested about what
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1 we would consider mega products. So, these are the flea

2 and tick preventions, this is the heartworm preventions,

3 and then there's everything else. And the mega products

4 tend to be continual use. So, like any consumer product, 

5 people like to get into things that people are going to 

6 buy over and over again, whether they are sick or not, and 

7 if they're sick on an ongoing basis. They're dealing with 

8 things that are over-the-counter. The flea and tick 

9 prevention tend to be you don't need a prescription, and 

10 the heartworm preventions you do need a prescription 

11 and those are FDA-approved.

12 The “everything else” category includes both

13 categories. They could be short-term things like

14 antibiotics to treat an infection, or they could be

15 chronic use such as pain relief, et cetera, and those

16 tend to be more attractive and profitable for the

17 manufacturers.

18 One big question in pet drugs is, is it worth

19 seeking registration approval for a specific veterinary

20 product? So, what else do we need to know to answer

21 that question? A large percentage of the medications

22 prescribed by veterinarians are not labeled for the

23 patient species they're targeted for. They're the same

24 medications and formulations that you and your

25 grandmother are taking. There are several differences:
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1 the indications, the safety, the dosing, the drug 

2 interactions, many of them differ from grandma and between

3 species. You know? A dog is not a little person, and a 

4 cat is not a little dog. The physiology and the 

5 pharmacology are very different, and that's what a lot 

6 of the veterinary education is focused upon.

7 As we've seen, it's a much smaller market, and

8 the research possibilities and NIH funding for

9 veterinary research are much less than in human

10 medicine. So, the information sources -- a lot of these

11 things are figured out by colleagues in academia, in

12 practice, and shared through literature, conferences and

13 other media that are generally not explored by typical

14 medical education or a pharmacy education.

15 I mean, I am by training a veterinary

16 cardiologist and I can't tell you how many times I run

17 into colleagues, physicians in all trades of life who

18 look at me and go, snakes have hearts? So, I think it's

19 a whole different world for them. Some of my best

20 patients were snakes.

21 So, one of the questions that Stephanie and

22 Elizabeth put to me to think about was the growth trends

23 and future projections. I've got no idea. So, an

24 honest answer.

25 So, like any supply chain, we'll start looking
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1 at the supply chain and how I think we've gotten to the

2 current situation. We've got manufacturers. The

3 manufacturers sell to the veterinarian, as Doug talked

4 about, either through distributors or directly, through

5 distributor reps or manufacturer reps. And classically,

6 as I said before, most consumers and their pets got

7 their medications from the veterinarian.

8 One thing to really make clear is that the local

9 pharmacist has always been a big part of this chain.

10 It's not new for veterinarians to be writing

11 prescriptions. And when I was in practice full-time, 

12 the relationship with a local pharmacist was a big,

13 important thing because a lot of the formulations we

14 use are different, and the pills and the solutions need

15 to be cut up and diluted down into concentrations and

16 sizes that a cat and dog or a bird or a snake can take.

17 These are not easily available unless you're producing

18 them yourself within your practice, or dealing with a

19 good compounding pharmacy or a local pharmacist that 

20 you have a good relationship with.

21 In the '90s, with the advent of the Internet, we

22 started to see the appearance of the online pharmacies.

23 And the question that arose was, how were they getting

24 products? Because the manufacturers and the distributors

25 had -- for reasons we'll get into -- stated that these
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1 products, many of them would only be sold into the

2 veterinary channel, because they believed -- and there's

3 many reasons we'll talk about -- that the veterinarian was

4 the most educated to be able to decide when they should

5 be used and which should be used, and to detect

6 problems. And so, they wanted their products to get a

7 good reputation and be used properly.

8 So, there appears the gray market. And the 

9 question arises, how did those middlemen within the gray

10 market, who are aggregating product, get the product?

11 And that's the investigative reporting that the

12 VIN News Service did, and it turns out, from everywhere.

13 I'm embarrassed to say that there were veterinarians who

14 buy product beyond their personal needs, aggregate it

15 and sell it to these middlemen for not much profit we

16 found out. We did that by creating our own diverter of

17 only over-the-counter products, so to keep it legal.

18 Manufacturer and distributor reps, it turns out,

19 are a big part of this. How high it goes up that

20 they're encouraged to do this, to make their numbers,

21 and to increase their income, we don't know. But we know

22 that they're a big part of this. And there's a lot of

23 indications that manufacturers, despite saying that they

24 don't want to sell into these channels, and

25 distributors, are doing so directly as well.
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1 The latest players would be the big box stores,

2 such as the Walmarts and Targets, and the big chain

3 pharmacies, like CVS and Walgreens, who have

4 recognized that there is a good market in these

5 products, although we recognize very tiny. So why would

6 they be interested in this? And as you'll see, they're

7 probably getting the product by the same mechanisms, and

8 the reason that they're interested is because I think

9 for them, it's the latest milk in the back of the

10 supermarket. It's the way to get more consumers in the

11 store rather than a true interest in pursuing pet

12 health.

13 So, there's another part of this chain.

14 Recently, in the last decade, manufacturers,

15 distributors and other providers have come in to provide 

16 technologies to veterinary practice to give them their 

17 own online pharmacy presence, and be able to compete 

18 with some of the other markets. There is kind of a 

19 second gray zone that came in, it's not really a gray 

20 market. And this involves, it started with a company 

21 called VetCentric, who is now owned by Vets First 

22 Choice, and they had to change their model, because what 

23 they were doing was they would make an online store for 

24 the veterinarian, and the veterinarian's client would 

25 purchase from there, and then VetCentric could pay them a
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1 commission. And several pharmacy boards saw this as a 

2 kickback, so they had to change that model. There's another 

3 group today, VetSource, who is doing something similar. 

4 But both of these involve kind of phantom inventories and 

5 virtual transactions to make it the veterinarian's product

6 actually, so it looks like on paper actually they're paying 

7 for the product and getting their mark-up above it. So, 

8 this is just another market out there.

9 So, a big question is, what has this change and

10 this gray market and being able to get product through

11 other outlets done to consumer purchasing patterns?

12 Well, obviously, if most of it was going through

13 veterinary practices before, and then these markets are

14 emerging, things have moved in the direction towards the

15 right, and the market has moved over. How much, I don't 

16 have an idea for, maybe somebody else on the panels will 

17 give us an idea of where they think that split is today.

18 I can give you a better idea of sort of the

19 veterinary thoughts and reactions to this evolution.

20 Manufacturers now come in two flavors. So, Bayer, a

21 couple of years ago, decided to come out of the closet

22 and openly sell to the other chains, and admit that

23 they were selling to the big box stores and the online

24 pharmacies directly. The remainder of the manufacturers

25 have remained in the closet and still claim to be
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1 selling only through veterinary channels.

2 So, manufacturers are a big, important part of

3 this market. We need them to be developing new

4 products. We need them to be our partners, and to work

5 with veterinarians. But I think due to distrust that has

6 grown over the years and disbelief in the honesty of

7 their statements, there is a strained relationship

8 between the veterinary profession and the manufacturers.

9 Distributors, for the most part, I think have

10 remained in the good stead of the veterinary profession

11 and trusted. The distributor reps, although I think

12 many are trying to squeeze them out of the market, they

13 still are seen by the veterinarian as their friend and a

14 big source of drug and new product information. And I

15 think that the realization that they're involved in the

16 diversion of product has given them a little bit of a

17 black eye in the profession.

18 The local pharmacist is still a very important

19 part of the veterinary practice and relationship

20 locally. Obviously the gray market diverters are not 

21 viewed as very ethical, or the veterinarian's friend.

22 The online pharmacies, I would believe, and I

23 think most veterinarians believe that the convenience of

24 purchasing product in the Costcos and Walmarts will diminish

25 their market, and they will not go into oblivion, but
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1 probably are the ones greatly threatened by the big box

2 stores and the big pharmacy chains becoming interested. 

3 And although I think that there's a mixed relationship 

4 with the pharmacist within those chains, I think there 

5 is a great fear that they're coming to this market 

6 purely for financial reasons, without true concern for 

7 the health of pets and properly educating consumers.

8 There's lots of issues, I'm sure we'll get into

9 today, as far as being able to advise. We all go to the

10 pharmacy, and what do we fear? Getting called into the

11 counseling booth, and being told how to swallow that

12 pill. But for a pet, that's a very big issue. There's

13 no sense in giving a pet -- especially a cat, for 

14 example -- a medication if the pet owner can't get the

15 medication in. That's classically been a lot of why a

16 veterinary practice has been the best place for

17 administration, at least getting the first dosing, 

18 because the pet owner needs a lot of help. And then

19 afterwards they're calling and they can't get it in 

20 and the medication is no good if it doesn't get to the

21 patient.

22 The other thing that is a concern is that

23 pharmacists are not traditionally trained in veterinary

24 pharmacology, and all the nuances that I referred to

25 before. And in the panel we can talk to many examples
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1 where this becomes a very important issue. So, there 

2 is a danger to the pet health if the person dispensing 

3 can't recognize problems, can't inform about interactions,

4 and even doesn't understand the proper dosing and is 

5 trying to make a dog a little person, or if there are no

6 dogs, a cat a little dog.

7 So, how did we get here? Well, I think there's

8 a very logical reason as to how we got here. We said

9 it's a much smaller market, and so we have a

10 manufacturer who has high costs in getting a product to

11 market. So, how can they effectively market it? Well,

12 you turn to the veterinarian and you make him feel like

13 a hero. And I have been to many releases of new products

14 at big conferences that go exactly this way in that we

15 believe the manufacturer saying that the only way that

16 this medication can be used properly is being sold

17 through veterinary clinic, with your expertise. And, of

18 course, there's the carrot for the veterinarian of

19 feeling important, and having a new product to truly

20 treat. Some of these were wonderful new advents. If

21 anybody has been hurt by the new flea medications, it's

22 the fleas of the world. They're just, they're under

23 attack. The veterinarians were not immune from seeing

24 that this was extra revenue coming into their practice.

25 The manufacturers also had control over the
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1 distributors in which they would look at the major

2 distributors and say, if you handle our mega product,

3 you can't handle our competitor's mega product, and I

4 think this did a lot to artificially inhibit

5 competition.

6 The other players, just as happens in our free

7 market society, is if there's money to be made, others

8 are going to try to get into the market. So, I think it

9 really was kind of a predictable reaction down the chain

10 that all these things would happen. How much the

11 manufacturers planned this and how much it happened as

12 unintended consequences, I don't know. But to look at

13 kind of the chain of events, the manufacturers would

14 look at it as advertising new products and

15 pharmaceuticals for pets as too expensive to do direct

16 to consumers. And I think if we don't keep that in mind

17 and that cost gets added to the manufacturer's costs, we

18 may actually see the opposite effect of what we're

19 intending here in that we will see prices go up from the

20 manufacturer, who is truly the one who sets the bottom

21 line on pricing. They set the floor.

22 They promise veterinarians exclusivity because

23 they were the only ones who were qualified for these

24 products to be sold through. They would demand

25 distributor exclusivity, and that would also keep the
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1 price up. And they made happy, feeling-like-hero

2 veterinarians, but they also made dependent

3 veterinarians, because we saw how much of their gross

4 revenues have come to be seen as drawing on these

5 products. To be honest, I think veterinarians should

6 focus a lot more on service, because product is not what

7 we were trained to sell. And it made happy clients.

8 But once the brand was established, the gray

9 market starts to appear, and what this did was expand

10 the market. It reached consumers who didn't go to

11 veterinary clinics. It didn't really lower prices much,

12 because it was still all mostly coming through

13 veterinary chains, and so there wasn't much of a margin,

14 because veterinarians weren't marking them up as much

15 as people believe, in general. The big box entry, I don't 

16 know if manufacturers predicted this. So was this an 

17 end game for them, they were waiting for it, or is this a 

18 note on their case?

19 For the veterinary profession, I see it as a big

20 detriment, overall, this evolution, because I think it's

21 damaged the public's trust in the veterinary profession.

22 The veterinary profession has a need to supplement the

23 inability to charge adequately for services. It costs

24 veterinarians equivalent to what it costs a human

25 hospital to maintain that hospital, in many cases, and
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1 to provide those services across. And yes, they have

2 sustained the ability to charge affordable pricing for

3 services by supplementing with product fees. But I think 

4 when you have a situation where you're advertising to the 

5 public that veterinarians are overcharging you for these

6 products, the public is going to start to ask what else 

7 are they overcharging me for.

8 I think also, veterinarians are in trouble now.

9 That's a part of the story that hasn't been told.

10 There's an article that just came out in the New York

11 Times on lawyers, and the oversupply and the

12 educational debt. And the article ended being about

13 lawyers, but it started out saying, don't feel so bad if

14 you're a lawyer, because veterinarians have it much

15 worse. Right now, a veterinarian's educational debt is

16 like 2.3 times their starting salary, and most people

17 will tell you, you don't want to go beyond one time your

18 starting salary. So, if you think lawyers have

19 problems, veterinarians have it worse.

20 I think that there's a danger here if you stress

21 the veterinary profession too much further here that

22 with the increased competition you'll damage quality of

23 service available to the public. As Doug pointed out, in 

24 the end, we're talking about trade, but we can't forget 

25 that really the most important players here are the pet 
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1 owner and the pet. We really need to look at what we're 

2 going to do here and the intended and unintended 

3 consequences and what impact it will have upon them.

4 Thank you.

5 (Applause.)

6 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Dr. Pion.

7 We will now take about a ten-minute break, and

8 we will meet back here at 10:00 for the first panel.

9 (Whereupon, there was a recess in the

10 proceedings.)

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1 PANEL ONE

2 DISTRIBUTION OF PET MEDICATIONS

3 MS. WILKINSON: Could everybody please take

4 their seats and we'll go ahead and get started with the

5 first panel discussion.

6 Welcome back, everyone. I would now like to

7 introduce our first panel. Given our time constraints,

8 I will be keeping these introductions very brief, but

9 you can find detailed information about each panelist in

10 the bios that we have sitting out on the table. Once 

11 introduced, each panelist will have approximately five 

12 minutes to make remarks. Panelists, we do have a time 

13 keeper in the front row who will indicate to you when 

14 there's one minute remaining, 30 seconds remaining and 

15 when your time has ended. We will then use the remaining 

16 time to pose questions to the panel. 

17 I am joined by my colleague Elizabeth Jex, who is 

18 the co-moderator of this panel. She is also an attorney 

19 with the Office of Policy Planning.

20 Panelists, if you would like to respond to any

21 of our questions that we pose, please place your name

22 placard on its end, as Elizabeth is demonstrating, and

23 we will do our best to call on you as time permits.

24 For members of the audience who wish to submit

25 questions to the panelists, please fill out a question
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1 card and then hold it up in the air and one of the FTC

2 staff will come by and pick it up and then make sure

3 that the moderators get your questions. For those of 

4 you watching our live webcast who wish to submit 

5 questions to the panelists, please tweet your questions 

6 to our Twitter handle @FTC with the hashtag #FTCpets. 

7 You may also submit questions via the FTC's

8 Facebook page www.Facebook.com/FederalTradeCommission.

9 Our first panelist is Clinton Vranian. He is

10 the vice president and general counsel for Novartis

11 Animal Health.

12 MR. VRANIAN: Good morning. First I would like

13 to thank the FTC and Chairman Leibowitz for including

14 Novartis Animal Health in this workshop. We are very

15 pleased to be able to participate and to provide

16 information about our business and some perspective as

17 it relates to the issues that we're discussing today.

18 I'm Clint Vranian, general counsel for Novartis

19 Animal Health US, Inc. We are a division of Novartis AG,

20 the pharmaceutical firm. As you already may be aware,

21 Novartis is a world leader in the research and

22 development of products focused on the health and

23 well-being of patients. Across our organization, our

24 driving force is leveraging innovation to meet unmet

25 medical needs. At Novartis Animal Health, we extend this
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1 innovation to provide solutions which extend and enhance

2 the quality of life of our patients, our veterinary

3 patients, our companion animals, pets and their pet

4 owners. 

5 Today's workshop centers on, as you heard, the

6 companion animal or the small animal side of the

7 veterinary market, those that we use on our pets. Novartis'

8 companion animal portfolio -- and Dr. Pion talked a little

9 bit about this -- like many manufacturers, consists of two

10 categories: parasiticides and therapeutics. Parasiticides,

11 which represent the bulk of the market today, are those

12 medications or solutions that affect internal and external

13 parasites on our pets, things like fleas, ticks, heartworms,

14 chewing lice, as we heard earlier. These can take a variety 

15 of forms. Some of them are FDA-regulated, some of them are

16 EPA-regulated. They can be systemic, developed specifically

17 for companion animals or reformulated pesticides from the

18 agricultural field.

19 Therapeutic medications are products that

20 address medical conditions, they're much more akin to

21 human medications. They will address the medical

22 condition of the pet, such as arthritis, allergic

23 dermatitis, Addison's Disease and other conditions that

24 can challenge the pet's quality of life. These are

25 largely FDA products and they represent treatments that
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1 pets did not enjoy just a decade ago. Although these 

2 medications are essential, they represent a minority of 

3 the market for animal health products. Animal health 

4 therapeutic products, as I've said, are largely FDA5 regulated prescription medications.

6 At Novartis Animal Health, our entire portfolio --

7 parasiticides and therapeutics -- falls towards the FDA

8 side of the spectrum. As a division of a globally

9 respected health care company, we're a company with a

10 strong FDA prescription pedigree. Consistent with this

11 pedigree, our product portfolio which places the health and

12 well-being of our pets at the center of our mission that

13 is also FDA regulated. While today some of our products, 

14 a small subset are indeed non-prescription, we've founded 

15 our business on prescription medicine and today our 

16 portfolio followed suit. This underscores our primary 

17 objective, which is a commitment to and history of 

18 delivering innovative medicines through the veterinary 

19 channel. We introduced the first commercially successful

20 prescription flea medication in the 1990s. Since then our 

21 focus on FDA prescription medicine has not changed.

22 Now, prescription medications by definition must

23 be administered in the context of their efficacy and

24 their safety. It is essential to ensure that these

25 products are prescribed by trained professionals that
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1 are educated on the risks and benefits of these

2 innovative technologies.

3 The unique circumstances of a pet, of an

4 individual pet, setting aside its species or breed or

5 things endemic to the specific pet can impact the

6 administration, efficacy and safety of these products.

7 This is why the Veterinarian-Client-Patient-Relationship

8 plays a critical role for an FDA-focused company like

9 ours. Appropriate therapies require familiarity with

10 pharmacology, adequate education and a thorough

11 understanding of the unique circumstances of an

12 individual patient.

13 The Veterinarian-Client-Patient-Relationship is

14 essential to ensure the optimal application of these

15 innovations that can help prolong and save pets’ lives.

16 Accordingly, we bring our products to consumers and

17 their pets exclusively through practicing veterinarians.

18 We consider these highly skilled professionals to be our

19 partners in addressing unmet medical needs. We have

20 found no better way to ensure that innovative science is

21 best leveraged to the benefit of our companion animals.

22 We understand that the issues presented today

23 during this workshop will go right to the pocketbooks of

24 consumers and that our concerns are to better understand

25 distribution practices and analyze how these may affect
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1 consumer choice and price competition. Questions will be

2 posed here that ask essentially whether all pet

3 medications should be required to be made available to

4 consumers in different ways than they are today. Novartis 

5 Animal Health does not have an answer to this question for 

6 all companies. Nor can we take a position that would speak 

7 for all products and all product portfolios. But as a 

8 company with an FDA pedigree and founded on delivering 

9 innovation to unmet medical needs for the sole purpose of

10 preserving and enhancing the quality of life for our 

11 patients, we believe that doing so through the Veterinarian12 Client-Patient-Relationship creates efficiencies that

13 serve this objective.

14 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Vranian.

15 Our next panelist is Michael Hinckle. He is a

16 partner with K&L Gates law firm.

17 MR. HINCKLE: Thank you.

18 Good morning. I would like to thank the FTC for 

19 the opportunity to come and present on behalf of my generic

20 drug clients. I am primarily an FDA regulatory

21 attorney. I serve as outside counsel for a number of

22 pharmaceutical companies. A number of those are generic

23 drug companies, and some of those are in the generic

24 animal drug space. I know now you're thinking, “I didn't

25 even know there was a generic animal drug space.” But
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1 there is, and I think that one thing that we would like

2 to present today is a question and then maybe

3 think about what those answers would be.

4 The question, I think, on a lot of people's

5 minds, certainly my clients' minds is: Why are consumers

6 of animal drugs, particularly FDA-regulated companion

7 animal drugs, not seeing the same degree of savings

8 through the generic drug process that they see, say, on

9 the human drug side? I'm sure there are a number of

10 reasons. I suspect one of those is not that pet owners

11 are just not price sensitive and don't care how much

12 their drugs cost. I think they probably do. I think

13 certainly in this economy, almost everyone cares. I 

14 also think that when you look at our experience

15 with the human drug side, where there has been

16 tremendous pressure to try to contain costs, one of the

17 areas that has certainly been a successful area in that

18 cost-containing effort has been the generic drug

19 industry.

20 So, why is it that we don't have generic animal

21 drugs in the same way? Well, is it because the FDA

22 doesn't have a way to approve them? Well, that's really

23 not the case. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act

24 does set forth a pathway for approving generic animal

25 drugs. In fact, it uses the same bioequivalence
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1 criteria that's used for human drugs, they use the same

2 statistical criteria, the same confidence intervals and

3 the same type of bioequivalent studies. So, certainly 

4 the opportunity is there. There are some other reasons 

5 why, and I hear these from my clients and see them, as 

6 to why they're not entering the market and why you don't 

7 see the same cost savings. I congratulate the FTC on 

8 addressing these issues quite well with these panels.

9 With this panel in particular being the

10 distribution panel, there's a couple of things that I

11 would like to comment on. One is that as a generic

12 competitor thinking about entering the market -- the fact

13 that has been mentioned several times -- the veterinary

14 distribution channel, the channel to get right into the

15 veterinary clinics, is often times foreclosed by way of

16 exclusive arrangements that don't allow a generic 

17 competitor to easily enter that market.

18 The second one, and maybe not so obvious, is

19 that you would think, as a generic company, well, if I

20 can't get into the veterinary channels, can't I use sort

21 of the standard prescription drug wholesaler channels

22 that are used on the human side that primarily serve the

23 retail pharmacies and online pharmacies, and mail order

24 pharmacies. The problem there, again, is an access

25 problem, and a bit of a demand problem. In order to, as
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1 a generic company, if I want to try to get my product

2 into a major wholesaler, say a Cardinal or Amerisource

3 Bergen, that services the retail market, I've got to be

4 able to convince them that there's actually a market at

5 the retail market.

6 One thing that I would say that probably will

7 surprise you as someone representing the generic side is

8 one of the real problems is a lack of brand products at

9 the retail pharmacy level. This may also surprise you,

10 the fact is the generic industry -- and a robust generic

11 industry -- relies on a robust innovator industry. There

12 has to be an innovator product in order for there

13 to be a generic product. A real substitutable generic

14 relies on the brand product being prescribed, and then

15 substituting the generic. Without the brands in the

16 pharmacies, there's no demand. There's no reason for a

17 mainline standard wholesaler to carry the product.

18 So, I hope what I'll bring a little bit to this

19 discussion is that if we're going to provide real

20 competition and lower prices, like we've seen on the

21 human side, with generic animal drugs, there needs to be

22 a little bit of a leveling of the playing field so that

23 these generic companies can have access, both to

24 veterinary clinics, through the veterinary channels, and

25 also through the retail pharmacies and mail order
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1 pharmacies, through these standard wholesale

2 distribution channels.

3 So, once again, thank you for your time.

4 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Hinckle.

5 Our next panelist is John Powers. He is the

6 executive vice president of Drs. Foster & Smith.

7 MR. POWERS: Good morning. I would like to

8 thank Stephanie and Elizabeth for moderating this panel

9 this morning, and for inviting us here today.

10 I have had the good fortune of working in the

11 pet supplies and pet pharmacy industry for over 35

12 years. My experience includes being vice president of

13 marketing and merchandising, as well as the vice

14 president of operations both in the direct marketing

15 brick-and-mortar business and the Internet business,

16 all on a national scale. I have also taught marketing

17 for several years at the university level. As Stephanie

18 mentioned, I've been now 20 years as vice president of

19 Drs. Foster & Smith.

20 There are three main points I would like to make

21 here this morning. One, because of our background

22 history, we are uniquely positioned to fill pet

23 prescriptions. Two, there's a real dichotomy between pet

24 prescription portability and restricted distribution.

25 And thirdly, the restricted distribution is both
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1 illogical and untenable.

2 Drs. Foster & Smith is now in its thirtieth year

3 of providing quality pet products to pet owners. The

4 company was founded by two veterinarians, Dr. Race

5 Foster and Dr. Marty Smith, who continue today to own

6 and operate our business. Our pet pharmacy is an 

7 integral part of our operation. The Drs. Foster & 

8 Smith pet pharmacy is both Vet-VIPPS and PCAB certified. 

9 In addition to Dr. Foster and Dr. Smith, we have staff

10 veterinarians as part of our company. We also have a

11 trained staff of fully licensed, full-time pharmacists,

12 certified pharmacy techs, and veterinary techs. In 29

13 years, our company has been dispensing over-the-counter 

14 and prescription medications, therefore filling thousands 

15 of prescriptions. We have never had a single state or

16 federal dispensing violation in our history, and we're 

17 proud of that record.

18 Drs. Foster & Smith, therefore, has all the

19 necessary pharmacy certifications and accreditations, and

20 educated licensed staff of both veterinarians and

21 pharmacists working together, and a stellar record. The

22 question that I would like to ask is, then, what is the

23 justification for restricting pet prescription products

24 from us?

25 Second, prescription portability is one of the
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1 main subjects of these workshops. Later this afternoon,

2 an entire panel is devoted to that subject. I would

3 like to emphasize the point that true prescription

4 portability cannot exist within the context of

5 restricted distribution. Writing a prescription for a

6 particular drug and having that manufacturer of the drug

7 severely limit where the drug can be sold, to only a

8 veterinarian's office, has the real effect of denying

9 true portability. The result is that consumers have far 

10 fewer choices of where to fill that prescription, and the

11 ultimate result is higher prices. The AVMA guidelines

12 state, a veterinarian should honor a client's request for 

13 a prescription in lieu of dispensing. The AVMA also 

14 talks about using Vet-VIPPS as a way of ensuring a

15 pharmacy's credentials. I would like to remind everyone

16 here this morning that Drs. Foster & Smith is a 

17 Vet-VIPPS certified pharmacy.

18 Third, it is clear that the current method of

19 restricted distribution isn't working for anyone. Not

20 the manufacturers, who spend an inordinate amount of

21 time attempting to police the system and struggle with

22 chain of custody. Not the veterinarians, who deal with

23 conflict among colleagues and act as pharmacists as

24 opposed to practitioners. And not the consumers, who

25 pay higher prices and the result is often poorer pet
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1 health.

2 There's a tangential issue that should be of

3 concern to all of us, that is the real possibility of

4 product recalls. In the last several years, some of the

5 best known consumer companies in the United States have

6 faced product recalls. Baby toys, medical devices,

7 automotives. In fact, in the third quarter of 2011,

8 there were 35 million units of pharmaceuticals recalled

9 in this country. The only real way of controlling chain

10 of custody is for manufacturers to deal directly with

11 companies like ours. Selling directly to a pharmacy 

12 retailer like Foster & Smith rather than being an 

13 impediment to safety actually enhances consumer safety 

14 when it comes to drug recalls.

15 The current system of restricted distribution is

16 also illogical. Why should the distribution of pet

17 pharmaceuticals differ from the human model? Our

18 pharmacy has purchased and filled prescriptions from

19 companies like Pfizer for human heart medications like

20 Lipitor. Yet the same manufacturer denies us the ability

21 to purchase drugs like arthritic medication for dogs.

22 Does it make any sense that my pharmacy can dispense

23 heart medication for you, but not arthritis medication

24 for your pet?

25 Let me relate a personal story. My young
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1 daughter was diagnosed with human growth deficiency.

2 The endocrinologist put her on a growth hormone

3 treatment. That is an injectable prescription drug

4 that is directly shipped to our home. When we need a

5 prescription refilled, that is sent again to our home.

6 We can inject this into my daughter, but I can't buy a

7 refill for pet medication anywhere but a vet's office or

8 through a veterinarian.

9 To recap, let me make just three quick points:

10 Drs. Foster & Smith is uniquely qualified to fill

11 prescriptions; portability without product availability

12 is a sham; and restricted distribution just doesn't make

13 sense.

14 Thank you.

15 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Powers.

16 Our next panelist is Andrew Bane. He is the

17 chief operations officer for VetSource.

18 MR. BANE: Thank you, Stephanie, and good

19 morning everyone. Again, my name is Andrew Bane and I

20 am chief operating officer for VetSource. We appreciate

21 the opportunity to participate in this panel today and

22 offer our input and experience as the FTC considers

23 these important issues.

24 For those of you who do not know, VetSource

25 offers outsourced pharmacy services, as well as
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1 wholesale distribution services, for our contracted

2 veterinary hospital customers. We hold pharmacy

3 licenses in all 50 states, as well as wholesale

4 distribution licenses in all required states. We are

5 Vet-VIPPS accredited, and our outsource pharmacy services

6 enable veterinarians to offer the convenience of home

7 delivery directly to their clients. In essence, we

8 operate a specialized central fill-like pharmacy that

9 gives veterinarians an Internet presence.

10 We designed our business model similar to other

11 business models that exist in the marketplace to operate

12 as an extension of the veterinarian's pharmacy and to

13 fit within the context of the current veterinary

14 pharmaceutical network. This means that we do not

15 acquire any of our products via the gray market.

16 Regarding the distribution of pet medications,

17 we believe that veterinary medicine represents a special

18 niche within the practice of pharmacy. As has been

19 stated by other panelists, the medications, their unique

20 dosing, side effect profiles and uses for the veterinary

21 industry are very different from those in human use.

22 For these reasons, we believe it's a better

23 standard of care, pet health care, to utilize health

24 care professionals that have specific training in this

25 area of medicine. Of course this includes
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1 veterinarians, but it also includes specialists, for

2 example, members of the Society of Veterinary Hospital

3 Pharmacists, as well as other pharmacists who specialize

4 in veterinary medicine and work closely with the

5 prescribing veterinarians.

6 It's true from a regulatory perspective a

7 pharmacy is a pharmacy. In other words, a pharmacy

8 specializing in veterinary medications is required to

9 operate under the same regulatory statutes as a pharmacy

10 dispensing human medications. However, we know the

11 practice of pharmacy is very broad. For example, human

12 hospital pharmacy is recognized as different than

13 retail. Specialty pharmacy and compounding pharmacy are

14 also recognized specialties within the practice of

15 pharmacy. Specific training is required to properly

16 evaluate, dispense, educate and counsel pet owners on

17 the proper use and administration of medications to

18 different species of pets.

19 Because not all pharmacists receive this

20 training in the course of their education, we believe

21 veterinary pharmacy is also a specialty within the

22 practice of pharmacy. Just as a DVM degree is not

23 interchangeable with an MD degree, we feel that

24 pharmacists trained only in human medicine is not

25 interchangeable with a pharmacist specializing in
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1 veterinary medicine.

2 Until this training gap is closed and the

3 pharmacist-DVM relationship more closely models the

4 pharmacist-MD relationship, we believe that some

5 level of selective distribution by manufacturers or

6 additional regulatory standards is warranted to ensure

7 pet safety. I also think it's important to point out

8 that restricted distribution is not unprecedented in

9 human pharmacy. Some human medications requiring 

10 specialized knowledge for dispensing, counseling and 

11 management are only sold to specialty pharmacies that 

12 have demonstrated competency in supporting the proper 

13 use of those medications.

14 On the matter of gray market distribution of

15 veterinary prescription products, we feel that this

16 unregulated product trafficking has the potential to

17 endanger pet health. The lack of regulatory oversight

18 means that the appropriate mechanisms are not in place

19 to ensure that prescription products are stored and

20 shipped under their required conditions. This also means

21 that there's a lack of transparency in the chain of 

22 custody of the products for the dispensing pharmacists 

23 as well as for the pet owner. Furthermore, this gray market

24 distribution channel creates substantial risk of adulterated

25 or counterfeit compounds being introduced 
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1 into the supply chain.

2 Generally, veterinarians are authorized to

3 dispense prescription products via the respective

4 veterinary practice acts of the states within which they

5 practice. These acts require that the prescription

6 dispensing by the veterinarian is to occur within the

7 context of the valid Veterinarian-Client-Patient8 Relationship. This requirement is violated when

9 veterinarians wholesale products outside of the 

10 context of this relationship to other businesses.

11 Additionally, anyone reselling prescription

12 products needs to be properly licensed according to the

13 state boards of pharmacy, just as is required of

14 legitimate wholesale veterinary distributors. We feel

15 that gray market sales are occurring in violation of one

16 or more statutes in nearly every state. Although the 

17 state boards are consumed with many pressing issues in 

18 their mission to protect the public health, we encourage 

19 them to revisit this issue in veterinary medicine and 

20 remind veterinarians that this practice is not approved 

21 or sanctioned.

22 Once again, we appreciate the FTC's invitation

23 to participate in this workshop and we look forward to

24 the ensuing discussion.

25 Thank you.
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1 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Bane. Our next

2 panelist is Brad Dayton. He is the senior director of

3 pharmacy for Ahold USA.

4 MR. DAYTON: Good morning. Thank you, Chairman

5 Leibowitz and Stephanie for the opportunity to speak

6 this morning.

7 I am a retail pharmacist, I have been in the

8 retail pharmacy industry for 24 years. I started my

9 career at a local chain that existed in the Washington,

10 D.C. area, Peoples Drug. I worked for CVS Pharmacy and

11 worked for Giant Pharmacy in this area. I am currently

12 the senior director of pharmacy for Ahold USA. Most

13 importantly for this conversation today, I am a pet

14 owner, and I'm glad to learn this morning that I know

15 what percentage I fall into. I am not part of the 47

16 percent that one of our candidates mentioned, I am not

17 part of the one percent, but I'm part of the seven

18 percent, I have four pets. So, and all my pets are

19 shelter pets, also, and I would love to have brought my

20 animals today.

21 Ahold USA is a retail grocery-pharmacy

22 combination. We operate stores up and down the east

23 coast and the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. We

24 operate our stores under the banners of Stop & Shop,

25 Martin's, and in this local market, Giant. Ahold is a
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1 $25 billion company. We're the fifth largest grocer in

2 the United States. We operate 784 grocery stores and 565

3 pharmacies. Our pharmacies are in 11 states and the

4 District of Columbia, and in 2012, we'll fill

5 approximately 27 million prescriptions.

6 So, the question is, why is a retail pharmacist

7 interested in pet medications? A couple of points were

8 brought up in presentations this morning, 63 percent of

9 all Americans own pets. Very strange that between 60

10 and 65 percent of our customers who shop our grocery

11 store also shop our pet aisle. So, it is a natural

12 offering that we can offer our customers more services

13 such as being able to fill their pet medications.

14 We also -- as Dr. Pion pointed out -- fill many

15 prescriptions today from the human supply chain for pet

16 medications. However, we have limited ability to do

17 that. We have basically three ways to fill

18 prescriptions today for pets. One is from the human

19 supply chain. Secondly, are the products that we do have

20 available to us that are pet medications only. And

21 third, we've had to partner with a mail order type

22 pharmacy, PetCareRx, which is also a Vet-VIPPS certified

23 mail order pharmacy; and our customers are able to drop

24 their prescription off at our store or use our website

25 to order their prescription, and then we deliver that
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1 prescription through the mail to them at home.

2 Obviously, being a brick-and-mortar retail establishment,

3 that is not our preferred method, but it at least allows

4 us to play in the arena.

5 There have been questions raised this morning as

6 if we are actually qualified to dispense pet medications

7 as retail pharmacists. I would like to thank Dr. Pion

8 for using the picture of the retail pharmacist. That was

9 an Ahold pharmacist. So I was very happy when he said

10 the part about the trusted partner, but then we ended up

11 on the bad side of the equation where there were just

12 dollar signs and the word "danger."

13 Pharmacists are not 100 percent trained in vet

14 medications. I agree with that completely. However, a

15 pharmacist's experience, knowledge and education --

16 pharmacists go to school for six years, sometimes take

17 up to two years of post-doctorate work -- you can use your

18 education to develop and work with veterinarians on a

19 regular basis. I've had many opportunities as a

20 pharmacist myself, when I was presented with a

21 prescription for an animal that, I'll be honest, was not

22 quite sure of what that dose was.

23 A specific example with a horse -- a dose that

24 would have killed a human being -- that I needed to go

25 speak with the vet who wrote the prescription. So, the
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1 relationship does exist, and retail pharmacy wants to

2 play in this space, not only to increase sales -- because

3 let's face it, we are a business -- but we do care

4 for our patients and animals are our patients, also.

5 What I think the future should look like? I

6 think pet owners should have the right to choose where

7 they get their prescriptions filled, whether it be a

8 retail establishment, a mail order pharmacy or their

9 local vet. I believe that competition will only help

10 prices for pet owners. And I also learned this morning

11 that the average dog only makes it to the vet 1.6 times

12 a year. I need to talk to my wife, because it seems like

13 we go many more times than that.

14 So, in conclusion, I would like to thank the FTC

15 again for the opportunity to speak here, and just to

16 reiterate, pharmacists are qualified and we would like

17 to play in this space.

18 Thank you.

19 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Dayton.

20 Our next panelist is Gregg Jones. He is the

21 compliance manager for the National Association of

22 Boards of Pharmacy.

23 MR. JONES: Good morning. Thank you for the

24 opportunity to be here to speak with you about some of

25 the observations that the NABP, National Association of
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1 Boards of Pharmacy, has made. I, too, am a pet owner. I

2 consider myself having five children -- three daughters

3 and a German Shepherd and a Spaniel. I love those dogs

4 more as I get older. They stay home with me and watch

5 ball games and seem to love it, and they don't ask for

6 money or anything.

7 NABP primarily assists its members, boards of

8 pharmacy, in protecting public health. That's our

9 primary mission. We issue the Vet-VIPPS accreditation

10 to online pharmacies that dispense prescription drugs

11 for companion animals. What we do is offer an assurance

12 to the consumer that they are buying their medications

13 from a licensed pharmacy and a pharmacy that complies

14 with state and federal laws. Our pharmacies that are 

15 accredited undergo an extensive application process, 

16 and once they're accredited, they undergo an annual 

17 compliance review and every three years are re-surveyed 

18 to ensure their compliance with the standards.

19 I would like to touch on a few of the

20 observations that we have made regarding the acquisition

21 of drugs that are, as we've heard, exclusively

22 distributed to veterinarians and how we have seen these

23 entering into pharmacies. Overwhelmingly, the majority

24 of the pharmacies that we see obtain their drugs from

25 wholesale distributors. Included in that process are
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1 wholesale distributors and pharmacies that solicit

2 veterinarians to purchase medications. We see

3 veterinarians who serve as consultants to pharmacies or

4 wholesalers and the drugs are purchased in the name of

5 the veterinarian and then transferred to the wholesaler.

6 There are situations where veterinarians

7 actually own pharmacies and buy the drugs in the

8 veterinarian's name and then transfer them over to the

9 pharmacy. There are some situations where we have seen

10 veterinary wholesalers that are purchasing directly

11 from manufacturers and we're not sure exactly how they

12 have obtained those relationships, but they are buying

13 directly from the manufacturer certain types of

14 medications that appear to be restricted. We think 

15 some of these involve situations where the wholesale

16 distributor license was obtained under the name of 

17 possibly a veterinary hospital and then the veterinary

18 hospital went out of business and the wholesaler 

19 continued.

20 We have heard -- I think it was mentioned earlier

21 by one of the veterinarians -- about the relationships that

22 exist between veterinarians and some of the online

23 pharmacies, and the financial arrangements that are made

24 between them. We have confirmed that there are

25 pharmacies that are removing secondary bar coding that
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1 has been placed on certain types of medication to

2 identify the veterinarian that purchased that product.

3 Shortly after we learned of that, the pharmacies moved

4 to removing those medications and placing them into

5 vials and dispensing much like a human drug would be

6 dispensed.

7 I would like to touch on some of the differences

8 in the human drug distribution supply chain and

9 veterinary drug supply chain. Under the Food, Drug and

10 Cosmetic Act, human drug distributors must be licensed

11 by their resident state in accordance with rules

12 established by the FDA. Those requirements do not exist

13 for veterinary distributors. Under the federal act,

14 human drug sales must be tracked back to a manufacturer

15 or authorized distributor in accordance with FDA rules.

16 And again, this does not apply to veterinary

17 distributors. The licensing of wholesale distributors 

18 for veterinary drugs varies widely by the states. Some

19 states do not license veterinary wholesale distributors

20 of drugs and some states do not require veterinarians to

21 have a wholesale license to sell to a pharmacy.

22 In the human prescription supply chain, we

23 strive for and have the highest confidence in a closed

24 distribution system where drugs move from the

25 manufacturer to the wholesale distributor to the
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1 pharmacy or practitioner, through what is referenced in

2 the wholesale distribution for human drugs as the “normal

3 distribution chain.” This type of system is not

4 developed for animal drug distribution.

5 NABP's accreditation of online pharmacy ensures

6 that they are operating in accordance with the laws and

7 rules of their state and federal requirements, and

8 ultimately ensures that the medication that we give our

9 pets is safe.

10 Thank you very much.

11 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Jones.

12 Our next panelist is David Miller. He is the

13 chief executive officer of the International Academy of

14 Compounding Pharmacists.

15 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Stephanie.

16 Good morning, everyone. I am going to cover a

17 few quick points, but before we get into that, pretty

18 much everyone up here has some sort of relationship with

19 the veterinary industry. Some of us are clinicians,

20 some of us are pharmacists, some of us are involved in

21 manufacturing and distributing, but I would say most of

22 us in this room, when we were listening to Dr. Pion's

23 presentation, was thinking about the fur balls that we

24 have at home. How many of you own dogs? Yes. How many

25 of you held out your cell phone to show the person next
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1 to you a picture of your dog? How many of you are owned

2 by cats? Notice how I have phrased that, because up

3 until recently, I had five small ones that ran my life.

4 I'm now down to one, fortunately.

5 The reason why I tell you this, and I ask this,

6 because we all do share something in common, and that is

7 as pet owners. Sometimes we need medicines for our

8 animals, for our family members, if you will.

9 Compounding pharmacists play a rather unique role in the

10 treatment distribution system. If you think about dogs,

11 we have small Teacup Poodles and then we have Great

12 Danes. And it doesn't require clinical training to

13 understand that the dose of medicine you need for that

14 small Teacup Poodle is probably going to be a little bit

15 less than what you need for the Great Dane.

16 In the case of a cat -- for those of you who have

17 ever tried to get a pill into a cat -- after you have

18 managed to put the tourniquet on your bleeding arm and

19 come back from the emergency room, you know that there

20 are preferred ways to get things into a cat. And that's

21 usually with a gel that you can apply to their ear or a

22 tuna flavored solution that you can attempt to squirt

23 into their mouth at some point.

24 What compounding pharmacists do in collaboration

25 with veterinarians is create formulations, modified
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1 doses, and solutions for obtaining and creating

2 drugs that aren't available commercially. Things that

3 aren't in the manufacturer-wholesaler distribution chain.

4 I know much of our focus this morning is on the

5 mega products. But I want to make sure that you

6 understand how the marketplace and its current economic

7 incentives has created some rather difficult catch-22s

8 for compounding pharmacists and for veterinarians who

9 are trying to treat a wide range of species and a wide

10 range of sizes and types of animals within a given

11 species.

12 What do compounders do? We create medicines on

13 prescriptions in collaboration with prescribers, both on

14 the human side and the veterinarian side. In the case

15 of veterinary compounding, things are a little bit

16 different. The Food and Drug Administration has something

17 termed a compliance policy guideline that requires that

18 the compounding of medications for veterinary use must,

19 must, be done with commercially-available finished drug

20 products.

21 Now, when a pharmacist compounds something, we

22 really have two choices. We start with the raw

23 ingredient, the drug that we buy from the same FDA

24 suppliers that many manufacturers do, and that's the

25 same thing for both the human side and the veterinarian
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1 side. We also can use the old-fashioned method of take

2 the tablets off the shelf, grind them up and turn them

3 into something else. Those are the finished drug

4 products that I can buy from a wholesaler, or I can buy

5 directly from a manufacturer. The FDA requires in 

6 veterinary compounding that both pharmacists and 

7 veterinarians must use the finished drug product. 

8 Now, here's the problem. I receive a

9 prescription from a veterinarian. I have to prepare that

10 and compound it. The only way that I can legally do so

11 is if I use a finished drug product, a commercially12 available manufactured product I buy from the

13 manufacturer or the drug supply company. Unfortunately, 

14 because of unilateral decisions by manufacturers who have

15 restricted their sales to only veterinarians or veterinary 

16 supply houses, a pharmacy cannot buy that finished drug 

17 product. So, how do I get it? Well, I have to turn to 

18 and eventually begin to develop an unfortunate disruption 

19 in our supply chain that challenges the integrity. I 

20 have to get that medication not from the manufacturer, not 

21 from a veterinary supply house, I have to get it from a

22 veterinarian. And that starts opening up a whole series of

23 potential disruptions in the supply chain. As the

24 pharmacists on this panel and in the room will tell you,

25 the first and foremost thing that we are concerned about
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1 is knowing that when we pull something off of a shelf,

2 preparatory to dispensing to a patient, animal or human,

3 we want to make sure it is what it is.

4 So, I think we need to address how the

5 manufacturing-wholesaler side of the veterinary business

6 is set up in a manner that restricts pharmacists from being

7 able to obtain medications that they are legally required 

8 to have in order to care for patients.

9 Thank you.

10 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Miller.

11 Our next panelist is Nate Smith. He is the vice

12 president of business development at NuSkin Enterprises

13 and a former retail strategist for Walmart.

14 MR. SMITH: Thank you for having me. I

15 appreciate being on the panel.

16 I hope today to be able to share comments that I

17 believe reflect the interest of consumers. Because of

18 the distribution practices in this industry, consumers

19 pay more. They are limited as to where they can buy pet

20 medications, and they are, in many cases, denied the

21 chance to buy less expensive alternatives. This is an

22 important issue in this economy, as all Americans are

23 looking to save money, and they're demanding good

24 service and they also want convenience in the way that

25 they buy these drugs.
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1 When it comes to purchasing medication for their

2 pets, consumers are at a severe disadvantage. They

3 can't buy pet medications without a prescription. The

4 prescriber, in this case the veterinarian, chooses the

5 medication, and is free to choose a medication

6 distributed only through veterinarians. But this

7 system, with its inherent conflicts of interest, also

8 puts the veterinarian in a tough spot. It's unfair to 

9 both, and the government should step in to assure 

10 consumers are treated fairly, their ability to choose 

11 is protected, and competition is allowed to flourish.

12 Allow me to summarize my remarks in five points.

13 First, the distribution practices for pet medications

14 cost consumers money. These practices inflate prices

15 for pet medications and limit competition. They

16 discourage the prescribing of generics, which would save

17 consumers money, in and of itself, and put a downward

18 pressure on prices for the name-brand drugs. And it would

19 serve as a strong incentive for pharmaceutical

20 manufacturers to develop new drugs.

21 Number two, veterinarians choose the medication

22 and the brand. This makes the marketplace much

23 different than for consumer products. It's fine to

24 limit the channel distribution if you're a manufacturer

25 of a premium brand that you want to associate with a
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1 Nordstrom's and not a Walmart or a Costco. But it's not

2 okay when legally-established prescribing powers are

3 combined with exclusive distribution.

4 Number three, pharmaceutical manufacturers can

5 engage in practices with pet medications that they could

6 never do with human medications. There are examples of

7 manufacturers providing sales incentives to

8 veterinarians, protecting them from price competition,

9 and rewarding them with extra product that can be

10 resold. In 2011, Elanco sent a letter to veterinarians

11 highlighting and then condemning the decision by a

12 competing pharmaceutical company to sell its products

13 outside the veterinarian channel. I ask that a copy of

14 this letter be made a part of the record, and I will

15 provide that to you, Stephanie.

16 Number four, veterinarians can engage in

17 practices which human physicians do not or cannot.

18 Under the American Medical Association Code of Ethics,

19 where there is a potential of conflict of interest

20 between the physician's financial interest and that of

21 the patient, the physician is required to so advise

22 patients and to resolve the conflict to the patient's

23 benefit. The AVMA code recognizes that a patient whose

24 interest is in receiving quality health care is placed

25 in a difficult, if not impossible position when the
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1 health care provider sells products or additional

2 services to that patient. Pet owners are the same. 

3 If they ask for a copy of the prescription, it puts them 

4 in an uncomfortable position of having to ask their 

5 health care provider for permission to purchase 

6 elsewhere. This is an unreasonable burden which is why 

7 we don't have to ask for our prescriptions from human

8 physicians, or from an eye doctor, for that matter.

9 Five, finally, consumers have a right to know

10 they are grossly underrepresented in this marketplace 

11 and they are the ones with the most at stake. Consumers

12 are unaware of the hostile market power. Pet owners

13 rightfully love their vets for the care they give;

14 however, veterinarians have an identity crisis on the

15 horizon. The system keeps prices high, discourages the

16 use of generics and more affordable or efficient

17 alternative solutions, and blocks more convenient access.

18 So, I commend the FTC for holding these

19 workshops, and I hope that this becomes the beginning of

20 creating solutions and a means to an end that will help

21 the consumer. When and where that occurs, I believe

22 that everyone will win. I believe that manufacturers,

23 veterinarians and consumers will all enjoy improved

24 economics and benefit from a change in the way we manage

25 and regulate this industry.
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1 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Smith.

2 Our next panelist is Mark Cushing. He is a

3 partner with Tonkon Torp law firm and he is here today

4 representing the American Veterinary Distributors

5 Association.

6 MR. CUSHING: Good morning. It's a privilege to

7 represent the AVDA. Let me start with some broad

8 observations, and then I'll tell you a bit more about

9 AVDA and our role in the pet medication chain.

10 I look around the room and I see a number of

11 colleagues that, like myself, have been involved for the

12 past two years in efforts to defeat the retail support

13 for H.R. 1406 in Congress, which after two years is not

14 proceeding. I share that because what became clear on

15 Capitol Hill, fortunately for those of us who opposed

16 the bill, is that this is a classic solution in search

17 of a problem.

18 I will tell you that the discussion today and

19 the focus of this workshop is much the same. It is a

20 solution in search of a problem. It's fair in our

21 system to go to Congress, to go to an agency and raise

22 issues, that's great. We're here to have a good

23 discussion, but the very fact that you have the

24 conversation does not mean that you, in fact, do have a

25 problem that requires federal intervention.
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1 Let me expand. For example, every state

2 extensively regulates the veterinarian-client 

3 relationship. It is not the subject of a one-paragraph

4 statute buried in state statute books. It is a

5 comprehensive, multi-paged, detailed, administratively

6 enforced scheme to regulate the veterinarian-client

7 relationship. The intent of 1406 was to nationalize 

8 that, and for the first time to have the Federal 

9 Government, and specifically the FTC, regulate the

10 veterinarian-client relationship. Many of us felt, and 

11 I believe the majority of Congress felt, that at this 

12 time in our nation's history, that's not necessary and

13 not a good idea.

14 Second point. We have a vigorous, highly

15 competitive pet medication marketplace. I respect my

16 colleague, whom I have just met to my right, but I

17 couldn't disagree more with his conclusions. The notion

18 that consumers are trapped, that they're prisoners in

19 this simple veterinary-driven pet medication marketplace

20 is just not true. It is a highly competitive

21 marketplace.

22 My client, AVDA, shared in its comments -- and I

23 encourage you to take a look at this -- a study commissioned

24 by Axiom, an animal health consulting firm, to just get

25 a feel for broadly how competitive is the pet medication
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1 marketplace. Take a look at that. One can only

2 conclude, as consumers understand, you can get pet

3 medications, both prescription and otherwise, OTC, from

4 a host of sources all over this country, online, retail,

5 veterinary and otherwise. It's simply not correct to

6 say that that marketplace is constricted and somehow

7 works against the consumer. Again, it's a solution in

8 search of a problem.

9 So, to my main point. At the heart of the

10 system, when you strip it down to its essentials, we're

11 talking about the health of a pet and the safety of a

12 pet, period. It is a rational decision. You can debate

13 it, but it is a rational decision for a manufacturer to

14 determine that it wants medical products that depend

15 upon an understanding of the physiology and the

16 pharmacology of a host of species to be placed in the

17 hands of licensed medical professionals who were trained

18 to do that.

19 Therefore, it's a rational decision for

20 distributors to honor those contracts and provide those

21 medications to veterinarians. And we can spend all day

22 talking about that, and I'm not qualified as a lawyer,

23 doctor of juris prudence, but certainly not a DVM, I am

24 not qualified to enhance the discussion there.

25 So, do go to the record and read hundreds of
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1 submissions, mainly by veterinarians and many by state

2 veterinary medical associations, an excellent submission

3 by the AVMA, that make that point. It's not a

4 condescending point. It's not a point that in any way

5 attempts to demean pharmacists, of course not. Human

6 pharmacists have impossible jobs. In the current

7 environment, thousands of chemical factors that they

8 have to understand for the human species, and they have

9 to do it right every time.

10 My point is, don't assume it's a simple thing.

11 I know pharmacists don't assume it's a simple thing

12 after their human pharmacy training to turn around and

13 say, let me see, with a 10-hour course here, a little bit 

14 of extra work there, I can figure out how dogs work, how

15 large dogs, small dogs, old dogs, young dogs, cats, go

16 down the line. It's very complicated.

17 It makes sense that medications are placed in

18 the hands of professionals trained, and frankly, 75

19 percent of a veterinarian's training in their four years

20 of vet school, in some meaningful way, involves or

21 considers knowledge related to how medications and

22 pharmacology operates in a given species.

23 I just suggest to all, including, of course, the

24 FTC, take that expertise seriously. Take seriously the

25 concerns that you need to bear in mind as you make a
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1 decision about an individual pet.

2 I'll say to that end, I'm disappointed that we

3 don't have on any of the three panels today a

4 representative from state veterinary medical

5 associations, many of whom submitted comments, most

6 importantly from Oregon, my home state, documenting a

7 whole series of examples of adverse consequences for

8 pets when there was a decision made by a pharmacist,

9 online or retail, to change dosage, or to swap out the

10 particular prescription for a different drug reflecting

11 a lack of concern or understanding about how the

12 medication would work with a pet when a simple phone

13 call might have made the difference.

14 Of course, veterinarians, every day, I'm sure by

15 the time, 11:00 on the east coast, there have been a

16 thousand prescriptions written and probably handed to

17 clients that go to human pharmacies. Veterinarians

18 understand that. And what they hope is that a

19 pharmacist who has any questions, or more importantly,

20 gets some independent idea about what to do with that

21 prescription, would get on the phone and call the

22 veterinarian and ask for guidance. Unless that

23 pharmacist was trained to deal with animal-related

24 issues. That's fine, but we're not talking about that 

25 in this context. So, I would just urge you to keep that
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1 consideration in mind.

2 Very briefly, AVDA has 74 members. It is a

3 combination of both distributors and associate members

4 who are manufacturers. It has both generic and pioneer

5 manufacturers in its membership. It services

6 approximately 55,000 veterinarians and 25,000 practices,

7 as well as 10,000 other retail and over-the-counter

8 outlets. It should be obvious just from those figures

9 why distributors exist, from the manufacturer's

10 perspective, right? If you're trying to service that 

11 broad of a market, you need the assistance, and 

12 distributors provide that, and I think they do a good 

13 job. They comply with a whole host of Federal agencies, 

14 DEA, FDA, USDA, of course, EPA on the pesticides or 

15 insecticides, as well as state boards of pharmacy and so 

16 forth. It's a complicated business, and they take it 

17 seriously, and I'm happy to answer questions as the day 

18 goes on. Thanks.

19 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Mr. Cushing.

20 Once again, we have Dr. Paul Pion. He is the

21 president and co-founder of the Veterinary Information

22 Network and we wanted to give him an opportunity to

23 provide any additional comments to his presentation

24 earlier.

25 DR. PION: Thank you.
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1 So, when I gave my presentation, despite the one

2 slide that I tried to show what veterinarians were

3 thinking, I tried to keep it as objective as possible

4 and just tell a story. Last night, when it kind of

5 dawned on me that I had to say more than that, I started

6 to jot down some thoughts to speak more as a

7 veterinarian.

8 One of the points I realized that I had left out

9 of my presentation was the issue of compounding, so

10 thanks for covering that. The only thing I would add

11 there is one of the patterns we've seen is there's a

12 great partnership between veterinarians and compounders,

13 but sometimes it's gone too far and not been regulated

14 and it's kind of merged into manufacturing when products

15 weren't yet available. So, just one other thing to

16 throw in the mix.

17 I would agree with the Distributors Association

18 that the market is right now very competitive. I mean,

19 just the fact that the Chairman of the Federal Trade

20 Commission could walk into Costco and buy Frontline and

21 give a product ad in front of this forum was

22 documentation that anybody can buy any product,

23 and if the chains were not open, these big retailers

24 would not be currently providing them if they didn't

25 think they had a sustainable supply chain. So, despite 
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1 the fact that what's written down and what's said 

2 publicly by manufacturers and distributors, the chain is

3 quite open.

4 One of the things that really dawned on me is

5 that the focus has been on veterinarians in H.R. 1406,

6 and that kind of says it backwards, since the control

7 here has always been and is in the hands of the

8 manufacturer and distributor and their relationships

9 that are largely dictated by manufacturers.

10 Veterinarians want to do what is best for their

11 patients and clients. This is not to deny that losing

12 medication income has and will hurt veterinarians, but I

13 think they've already lost much of that. But I do

14 believe there's a real chance that as it increases,

15 there could be an increase, and we're already seeing an

16 increase in service fees that will result. In the end,

17 pet owners will end up paying more for their pet care,

18 or fewer pets will be seen, which will deteriorate the

19 health care of our pets and our population.

20 One of the things I don't want to see come out

21 of this is animosity between veterinarians and

22 pharmacists, in that there has always been a great

23 relationship between them. They're two very noble

24 professions, and I really see that trying to force it by

25 law will start to create that animosity.
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1 So, yeah, I agree, and I think most colleagues

2 agree that pet owners should be informed, they have the

3 right to a prescription to purchase their medications

4 elsewhere. I think in that regard, all veterinarians

5 are asking is a level playing field, that they be able

6 to not have their clients purchase in other retailers

7 for less than the veterinarian can purchase for

8 themselves, which is often the case. They want to know

9 that the products that their clients purchase have a

10 known pedigree, and they've been handled properly.

11 That's one issue that hasn't come up, I think in all the

12 jiggling that goes on in the supply chain, who knows how

13 long those products sat out on the tarmac in Phoenix at

14 110 degrees.

15 We have to remember that dogs are not little

16 people, and that cats are not little dogs. Dispensing

17 for pets is like dispensing for an infant. The client,

18 like a parent, needs the person providing the medication

19 to be able to advise them and caution them about drug

20 interactions and possible side effects, how to

21 administer it safely and effectively and even to spot

22 inappropriate doses due to math or transcription errors.

23 These can all be overcome by education. I have

24 no doubt that pharmacists can learn this, but is it

25 realistic to believe that the big box stores and
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1 pharmacies who largely see selling pet medications as a

2 way to increase traffic are going to pay adequate

3 attention to these issues?

4 I've said, most veterinarians agree that pet

5 owners should be informed and have a choice, but it

6 shouldn't be at the expense of ensuring that the

7 medications are dispensed appropriately with appropriate

8 ability to counsel.

9 So, I agree maybe veterinarians should do more

10 to inform pet owners they can get prescriptions

11 elsewhere, and maybe a sign in a lobby would be enough.

12 Most veterinarians, it just doesn't come up in the

13 conversation. I don't think it's an outright attempt to

14 restrict it. And if pharmacists don't get the proper

15 education and don't respect veterinary prescription

16 directions, meaning consult the prescribing veterinarian

17 before they consider substituting what they consider an

18 equivalent drug, or preparation, or questioning a dose

19 without first consulting the prescribing colleague, then

20 I think we're going to see lots of problems within the

21 market.

22 I've got hundreds of examples where this has

23 been an issue, just recently about a Dachshund in

24 California who was given 61 units of insulin when it

25 should have been six units, that ended up in the
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1 euthanasia of the animal because of the cost it would

2 have taken to take care of that.

3 And on a less severe degree, just last night a

4 colleague was telling me about a cat who had a

5 ringworm infection, a simple problem, and they

6 prescribed a systemic medication, Metronidazole, the

7 pharmacist looked at it and said, I would never do that

8 for a person, don't do that. And that delayed the

9 treatment for a couple of months before the person

10 almost gave up and euthanized the cat until they gave it

11 the medication for a few weeks and it was resolved.

12 Thank you.

13 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you, Dr. Pion.

14 So, we've heard in the presentations and in some

15 of the panelist statements what some of the business

16 rationales are for manufacturers to exclusively

17 distribute pet medications through the veterinary

18 channel, and not through the retail channel. It seems

19 namely that veterinarians are the ones who are trained

20 in veterinary pharmacology and that they are in the best

21 position to be able to properly oversee pet medications

22 and the way that they are used for safety reasons.

23 My question is, although the veterinarian is the

24 one with the VCPR, and is in the best position to

25 properly prescribe pet medications, why is it that the
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1 veterinarian is in the best position to also dispense

2 the medications? In other words, as long as retail

3 pharmacists dispense prescriptions exactly as written by

4 the veterinarian, why should there be concerns about

5 safety if a retail pharmacist dispenses the medications?

6 And I would open this up to the panel.

7 Okay, Mr. Vranian?

8 MR. CUSHING: This is Mark Cushing, I'm sorry,

9 did somebody else go first?

10 MS. WILKINSON: That's okay.

11 MS. JEX: From now on, if you could put your

12 name card up on end and we'll call folks in order.

13 MR. CUSHING: It’s always the lawyer that

14 misbehaves.

15 MR. VRANIAN: You've cited to the VCPR and the

16 importance of preserving that, and again I think it

17 comes to the portfolio of the manufacturer. If you have

18 non-prescription products or ones that have higher

19 safety and efficacy balancing acts to maintain, it's

20 important that the vet maintains these contact points --

21 and points include treatment, prescription, dispensing,

22 and follow-up. And dispensing is one of these contact

23 points that allows trained professionals to get some

24 feedback from somebody who doesn't speak any human

25 language. They are trained to acquire that feedback.
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1 From a manufacturer's perspective as well, here

2 we are today and there's billions of dollars of market

3 share that people want to get a piece of. That's one of

4 the questions here today. Many of the most effective

5 life-saving products, take our Clomicalm product,

6 considered medically necessary by the FDA. In other

7 words, we are required to make it available.

8 The market this year for Clomicalm is about $2

9 million. We are not getting requests from big box

10 stores for Clomicalm. They don't want a piece of that

11 action. But by this model where we educate the vets and

12 they have ownership in the dispensing and prescription

13 and treatment and follow-up, and they know in their

14 community across 25,000 veterinary clinics who needs

15 this drug, a model where we can efficiently provide that

16 on a one or two-box basis across the country I think

17 increases access to medicine.

18 You also factor that into innovation. We come

19 out with products for diseases that weren't available

20 just a few years ago: Addison's Disease for canines,

21 ectopic dermatitis for cats and dogs, life-threatening

22 and devastating diseases. The vet clinic is a good way

23 to generate awareness and demand for that. All we know,

24 we have a dog that's itching or that seems unhappy, we

25 take our dog or our cat to the vet. That is the point
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1 where these innovations can be made available to the pet

2 owner. By focusing on that channel and training them

3 and giving them those additional contact points where we

4 can keep sacred that Veterinarian-Client-Patient5 Relationship just ultimately enhances the quality of pet

6 health.

7 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

8 Mr. Bane?

9 MR. BANE: From our perspective, again, the

10 veterinarians are the ones who receive the formal

11 training, so it makes sense, as Clinton just mentioned,

12 that distributing those products to the professionals

13 that they know had experience in monitoring the side

14 effects and being able to get ahold of that group of

15 professionals to be able to train them appropriately,

16 monitor side effects, administer doses, et cetera, makes

17 some sense.

18 From our perspective, one of our closest allies

19 as a pharmacist -- and having to expend significant time

20 overcoming this training gap and the availability of

21 information for pharmacists -- one of our closest allies

22 is the veterinarian. So, in the case of dispensing,

23 often times our veterinarians, before they send us a

24 prescription they would like us to fulfill and send to

25 their client, they'll administer that first dose in the
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1 hospital, where that one-on-one interaction with that

2 pet owner and that pet allows them to understand

3 how it's dosed and what signs to watch out for is very

4 important.

5 In fact, I think in some of these other

6 establishments, we can't see the patient, so that's an

7 important thing for us to maintain that very close

8 relationship with the veterinarian in that context where

9 they can explain those things to the client in a way

10 that's much more difficult in other ways.

11 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

12 Mr. Powers?

13 MR. POWERS: Thank you. I would like to make a

14 few points. First of all, with all due respect to Dr. Pion,

15 I think there's some clouding of the issue when Chairman

16 Leibowitz showed that product up there, Frontline, that

17 is an OTC product. So I think we have to be careful when

18 we talk about restricted distribution, we separate those

19 products which are OTC products that were registered by

20 the manufacturer to be sold over-the-counter as opposed

21 to prescription drugs.

22 Secondly, there was a point made about there's

23 plenty of distribution out there because of big box

24 retailers getting some product. That's true, but that's

25 usually as other people have pointed out, often times
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1 through the gray market or through the nefarious ways of

2 getting the product. My question, again, is I've heard

3 the comments of the veterinarian-pharmacist

4 relationship, we're a company who has both veterinarians

5 working in concert with pharmacists, we're still told we

6 can't get the drugs, they're restricted from us.

7 The third point that I wanted to make was

8 listening to the VCPR relationship, my vet is great, I

9 love my personal vet, but where does that relationship

10 begin and how does it progress? Pfizer in their

11 statement to the board here said that there were six

12 million prescriptions filled outside the veterinary

13 channel for pets. We've heard it again and again that

14 other people fill many of these, the pharmacists fill

15 many of these. Does that mean that each time each of

16 those six million times that somehow the

17 veterinarian-client relationship was diminished?

18 In my own case, I have a Groenendael that was

19 abandoned that I took in that recently had eye problems.

20 My veterinarian, Allison French, a wonderful woman, decided

21 the dog was coming down with glaucoma. She prescribed a

22 drug, pilocarpine, to reduce the pressure in that dog's eye,

23 but she said, “John, I don't carry it, here's the

24 prescription, you should take it to Walgreens or some

25 place to have it filled.” Does that mean that once she
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1 gave me that prescription for my dog that it diminished

2 the Veterinarian-Client-Patient-Relationship between

3 Allison and I? I don't think so.

4 MS. WILKINSON: Okay, thank you.

5 Mr. Miller?

6 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Stephanie.

7 I know we're the distribution panel, and it's

8 always a struggle sometimes for the clinicians in the

9 room. I think there's a lot of discussion today about

10 stuff. Stuff -- the things that we can buy, sell, what's

11 in the marketplace, what's in the chain. But to the

12 clinicians in the room, the veterinarians and the

13 pharmacists, this is not stuff. This is now we treat

14 and cure disease. Whether it's for an animal or for a

15 human.

16 Stephanie, your question was should we,

17 considering the VCPR, ensure that veterinarians still

18 have the ability to obtain and dispense medications,

19 even in an environment or a marketplace that's changing

20 and expanding so that other types of distribution

21 points, retail pharmacies, online pharmacies, whatever

22 it might be, evolve. The answer to that is so simple, 

23 I guess, from a pharmacist's perspective, and I would 

24 think from a vet's as well. Absolutely. Because we 

25 know as clinicians that there are instances when a patient
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1 presents, when a client presents, that they're going to 

2 need that medication to be available immediately, and 

3 that's going to be from the veterinarian. There are

4 specialty medications, as we've heard, that are only

5 appropriate for dispensing by veterinarians. And that 

6 needs to remain with them.

7 At the same time, we also have to recognize that

8 just as in the human side of the world, that there are

9 instances where the medication isn't available and

10 approved by the FDA CVM, that it is a human version, and

11 that probably the retail pharmacy, be it a Walgreens

12 or Dave's Independent Drugstore, is the place to go get

13 that.

14 We need to ensure for consumers that they have

15 as many options to get the medications and therapies

16 they need, but we also have to balance that with the

17 very simple fact that this is not the marketplace of

18 widgets. This is the marketplace of patient care that

19 just happens to have a product associated with it.

20 We cannot let that be forgotten in this

21 discussion.

22 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

23 Mr. Cushing?

24 MR. CUSHING: Thanks. Two points that haven't

25 been made. The question, again, is the role of the
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1 veterinarian in the actual dispensing, not just in the

2 writing of a prescription. There's a simple practical

3 value. Many pet owners in the real world, at the end of

4 a workday, stop by their veterinarian, their pet may

5 have been examined during the day or treated, and they

6 pick up their pet to take them home, and it's extremely

7 convenient and it's very consumer friendly for the

8 veterinarian to play that role, just as a practical

9 matter.

10 More complex, and I would encourage you all if

11 you haven't read it to see the submission by the Animal

12 Health Institute, which had an excellent description

13 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that just summarized

14 six or seven of the services, if you will, that

15 pharmacists typically provide to their customers, and

16 we've all experienced that in the human context.

17 If you go down that list, we don't just go to a

18 pharmacist and get something back. There's a

19 conversation, there's advice given, there's questions

20 asked. It's expected. It's part of the pharmacist view

21 of their own profession. That's appropriate.

22 The veterinarian, uniquely, that is unique

23 meaning there may be a veterinary-trained pharmacist in

24 a pharmacy, but for the most part, the veterinarian is in

25 that position to have that conversation with the client
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1 as to how this works, what to do, what problems to

2 expect, what frustration you're going to meet in about

3 35 minutes when you get home and try to administer it,

4 how to respond to that and so forth.

5 That's much more than a pure prescription

6 writing service and I think it's appropriate.

7 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

8 Dr. Pion?

9 DR. PION: Well, you may be surprised that I'll

10 probably be the least likely to try to defend keeping

11 the status quo. I think most colleagues have accepted

12 that product medication sales has to become less a part

13 of their practice. I don't think we're here trying to

14 stop that.

15 I think that we are here to try to see it

16 done rationally. I think there are issues that relate

17 to convenience. I mean, we all go to the physician now,

18 and what happens? You might get a physical exam, you

19 get sent here for blood work, you get sent there for a

20 radiograph, you're sent there to pick up medication, and

21 that's not been classically what people are going to put

22 effort into for their pet's care, and I don't think

23 that's what the public wants to see.

24 So, physicians handle that. Manufacturers

25 handle, since physicians can't dispense, they handle
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1 directing what physicians are likely to dispense by

2 providing them with samples. So, they tend to prescribe

3 what they can give you: here, here's a few doses and you

4 can go fill it in a couple of days when it's convenient.

5 So, the same still does go on in the human market.

6 I think veterinarians are all in favor of choice

7 and helping their clients, because veterinarians are

8 faced every day with the choice as opposed to humans,

9 where insurance covers costs. We're not able to

10 apply our healing arts because it's limited by money. I

11 think most of us would be happy if the medications were

12 available elsewhere, free, cheap, but in the end, the

13 client is going to look at the cost of that health care,

14 as what they spent at the veterinarian, and what they

15 paid for the medication.

16 If we take out efficiencies of the system, and I

17 talked about how, and I think Novartis and a few others

18 have addressed how it's just not efficient for them to

19 try to introduce these products and will it reduce the

20 incentive for innovation and introduction of great

21 products into pet health care if the unintended

22 consequences of the outcome here is that it actually

23 ultimately increases pet health care cost.

24 So, I think there's lots of conflicting issues

25 here, but I don't think you're going to find
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1 veterinarians wanting to say I think that this should be

2 restricted in that way. I think most veterinarians,

3 they're good, honest, open people, and they would just

4 like the shenanigans to stop. And if these things are

5 going to be sold in the open chain, then that should be

6 fine and the public should have a choice and maintain

7 their relationship with their veterinarian.

8 MS. WILKINSON: Okay, thank you.

9 And finally, Mr. Hinckle?

10 MR. HINCKLE: Thanks. Stephanie, to get kind of

11 back to your question of why do we believe that a

12 pharmacist can't consistently follow directions on a

13 prescription and dispense the drug, I think the obvious

14 answer to that is that they can, and the reason why I

15 say it's obvious is because they do in a large number of

16 cases already.

17 As I think has already been mentioned,

18 pharmacists already dispense a lot of drugs for animal

19 patients. Many times it's off-label human drugs that

20 are being dispensed for the animal use. And bear in

21 mind in that case, the pharmacist doesn't even have an

22 FDA-approved package insert that discusses animal uses.

23 We're talking here about higher priced animal-only

24 prescription drugs where there is an FDA package insert

25 that a pharmacist can at least refer, aside from the
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1 obvious question that they can call the veterinarian

2 with any questions as well.

3 The idea that a pharmacist really can't dispense

4 these, surely there are some exceptions, as there are in

5 the human context, where you have some drugs that are

6 under restricted distribution, restrictive or risk

7 evaluation mitigation strategy, or REMs they're called

8 on the human side, that says you can only dispense this

9 drug after a physician has gone through a certain amount

10 of training or they've had certain lab tests for that

11 particular patient, for safety reasons.

12 Are there examples like that on the animal side?

13 Yeah, I expect there probably are, and I think most of

14 the veterinarians here would probably know that there

15 are some, but I think the concern here, and as far as

16 this workshop goes is, are we going to let those

17 exceptions drive the rule? Are we going to open the

18 market up to allow generic competitors in the retail

19 space, and then carve out the exceptions where necessary

20 to ensure animal safety?

21 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

22 I would like to move on and talk about the fact

23 that we've heard today that as a result of exclusive

24 distribution practices, that many retailers currently

25 obtain at least some portion of their product supply
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1 through the secondary distribution system. What I'm

2 interested in understanding is whether there are any

3 inefficiencies associated with this secondary

4 distribution system for both prescription and

5 over-the-counter pet medications and how do these

6 inefficiencies impact consumers?

7 Mr. Hinckle?

8 MR. HINCKLE: Okay, I'll just pick back up

9 again. Again, speaking from somebody who represents

10 generic drug companies, one of the things that I've

11 heard that's a problem for getting generic companies'

12 products into, in this case a chain retail drugstore,

13 was the chain said, look, we can't really carry your

14 generic if we can't also carry the brand.

15 From a corporate perspective they said, look,

16 we're not comfortable buying product outside of what in

17 the human side is considered the normal distribution

18 chain. We don't want to get it outside. They deal in a

19 PDMA world, the Prescription Drug Marketing Act, where

20 everything is very controlled on the human side. I

21 think Gregg talked about that from that perspective.

22 So, they are very uncomfortable getting out of

23 that chain, and so the impact is that the generic

24 products can't get into the retail market either because

25 the brand products aren't there. That clearly has an
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1 impact on consumers.

2 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

3 Mr. Dayton?

4 MR. DAYTON: You asked a question on

5 inefficiency, I think the largest inefficiency is time. 

6 For products we cannot obtain, we go to a

7 secondary supplier, which takes longer to get the

8 medication to our patients. So, I think time is the

9 biggest inefficiency.

10 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

11 Mr. Smith?

12 MR. SMITH: I think just in classic supply chain

13 consideration, you're always going to look at how many

14 players are there in a supply chain, how many times is a

15 product received, touched, reaped, distributed, shipped

16 somewhere else. And so when you think about the chart

17 Dr. Pion put up with all the arrows, and all the

18 additional touches that are occurring all across the

19 supply chain, it inevitably has to cost more money when

20 you have more people making a profit along the chain,

21 more people touching it, more freight miles, it can't be

22 cheaper.

23 The other thing that I would add is, at some

24 level, when you think through that chart, and then you

25 think about the average end prices that are being
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1 offered to consumers, it also makes no sense that the

2 product that gets tortured along the longest supply

3 chain with the most touches is generally showing up to

4 the market right now with the lowest price. It makes no

5 sense.

6 I think it demonstrates where margins must be

7 taken by certain players and the rate at which they're

8 taking those margins. It's not an efficient market. I

9 think the notion of convenience needs to be treated

10 carefully, because convenience at a cost is a certain

11 question. If I don't want to drive somewhere, because I

12 just want to have it prescribed and I want to take it,

13 fine. I think it's very well documented that prices are

14 much lower and if price becomes an important issue to

15 the consumer, then you can't claim that convenience at a

16 prescribe-and-fill location is better than how often do

17 they go to a supermarket or a place where a pharmacy is,

18 that's also convenient. We don't shop in a meat shop, a

19 bakery, and a sporting goods store. In our world today,

20 consumers need access and convenience to product, and

21 the obvious preference is they like to be able to buy

22 more than one thing in one place.

23 So, there's obviously inefficiencies for the

24 consumer as well. I don't think it's more convenient

25 to have to go to the vet every time I want my Heartgard
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1 refilled.

2 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

3 Mr. Powers, did you have a comment you would

4 like to make?

5 MR. POWERS: I was going to echo his comments.

6 Any product, whether it's hardware or housewares, where

7 you include another step in the distribution channel, is

8 going to raise prices for the consumer ultimately. Most

9 companies have a minimum mark-up they can work on and

10 still be profitable. Cost enters into that equation.

11 So, every incremental cost you add, from the time the

12 product is manufactured until it gets to the ultimate

13 retailer, will definitely affect the price of that

14 product to the consumer.

15 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

16 Dr. Pion?

17 DR. PION: I think it's important to remember

18 there's many different sides to the answer. So, from a

19 cost basis, to me, the one who has the most to lose by

20 opening the supply chain is the manufacturer. The

21 Walmarts, et cetera of the world push back on them and buy

22 on consignment, as they do with all others, and it will

23 bring lesser prices. There's other dangers in that

24 even if they're over-the-counter products, it doesn't

25 mean they're without harm.
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1 The EPA has been looking into the registration

2 of many of the spot-on products and if they're actually

3 causing problems. There are questions about lack of

4 efficacy, because of inappropriate use and overuse and

5 the species of insects or parasites that they're aimed

6 against becoming resistant to them. These are all

7 questions that are coming up.

8 So, again, I'll reiterate, I don't think it's

9 the veterinarians who are arguing strongly about this.

10 All the veterinarians really want is a level playing

11 field. I don't think they would mind at all if their

12 clients could purchase this for their patients for less

13 money, they just want to have an equal footing in there

14 and to give the consumer an option.

15 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

16 Finally, Mr. Vranian?

17 MR. VRANIAN: I think that certainly I defer to

18 many of the points that were made, but we have to

19 realize that this market is very dynamic and it's

20 evolving and these inefficiencies are resolving

21 themselves. Manufacturers that were cited in an earlier

22 presentation have embraced the non-veterinary channel,

23 voluntarily. We have seen innovations such as home

24 delivery services that embrace the Veterinarian-Client25 Patient-Relationship that leverage both of those.
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1 You've got mobile clinics.

2 So, to the extent there are inefficiencies in

3 the market, I would just put out there that the market

4 appears to be addressing them as well.

5 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

6 MR. POWERS: Excuse me, I would disagree with

7 that.

8 MS. WILKINSON: Okay.

9 MR. POWERS: Let me tell you why I disagree with

10 that. Some of the same manufacturers who are

11 restricting distribution to us today up until a year and

12 a half ago were encouraging us to carry their

13 prescription products and soliciting us to do more

14 business with those prescription drugs.

15 An arbitrary decision made by a manufacturer to

16 no longer sell to us without even informing us, left us with 

17 a case of we have lots of prescriptions on file with

18 customers needing refills and the drugs aren't available

19 to us.

20 So, I would disagree that it's an open channel,

21 and I would disagree that it's an arbitrary

22 relationship. It's an arbitrary decision on many

23 manufacturers' parts to turn off and turn on the spigot

24 of their prescription drugs.

25 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.
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1 How do manufacturers typically respond when

2 veterinarians resell products to retail pharmacies or to

3 secondary distributors?

4 Mr. Vranian?

5 MR. VRANIAN: As the manufacturer on the panel,

6 I can only speak from experience at Novartis Animal

7 Health and only conjecture about what others might do.

8 There appears to be a range across the industry. Some

9 might leverage the secondary market to obtain sales they

10 might not have obtained through the veterinary channel.

11 We've seen, over the past two decades, companies claim

12 to try and be able to control that, claim to be able to

13 police it and implement measures that they say can stop

14 it, but even those products tend to wind up in the

15 veterinary market.

16 I think in both cases, it can be a distraction

17 for both the manufacturer and the veterinarian when our

18 primary purpose is ensuring the safe, quality health

19 care of our pets. So, we've been in this industry for

20 two decades. We started before the Internet, it was

21 before my time, but my sense is that this really started

22 happening with the advent of online retailing. We had a

23 history of trying to stop it. It was impossible. It's

24 clear that this is an economic force and where there's

25 sufficient demand for a product, the consumer or the
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1 market is going to find a way.

2 It's not our place, and there are many

3 illegitimate secondary markets, but a secondary supply

4 can be done legally and it's not our place to prevent a

5 legal business from operating in any way.

6 So, we refocus on controlling what we can

7 control and that's focusing on the health and well-being

8 of our patients. To the extent that we see a

9 counterfeit or unapproved product, that is aggressively

10 pursued and reported. Let me put that out there. We

11 ask our contractual customers to guarantee what they are

12 going to do in the context of the Veterinarian-Client13 Patient-Relationship. We don't incentivize our sales force

14 to somehow look for opportunities to create a secondary

15 market. They are not incentivized if those things are

16 found. And if we learn of somebody that has represented

17 to us that they're going to sell in the context of the

18 Veterinarian-Client-Patient-Relationship and breaches

19 that representation, we have terminated supply

20 relationships with those clients.

21 We don't publish this to other customers, we

22 don't use it as a marketing tactic at all. I think

23 that's part of the distraction we're talking about.

24 Instead, we consider it our job to focus on what we can

25 control. Does that mean that some of our product leaks
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1 through to the market? We know it does. Our best

2 estimate is between two and five percent maybe on an

3 annual basis winds up in the secondary market. The cost

4 of trying to stop that, setting aside competitive

5 issues, is just cost prohibitive.

6 We focus on bringing clients back to the

7 veterinarian and controlling what we can control. In

8 the end, our objective through these measures is to

9 protect the quality and health and life of animals. It's

10 not to protect the channel, control distribution, limit

11 competition or support inefficient businesses. Rather,

12 our driving goal is to meet our medical needs through

13 the innovation and ensure the health and quality and

14 life of our companion animals.

15 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

16 I don't know if anybody would have a response to

17 this, but how do veterinarians view the practice of

18 their colleagues reselling products to retail pharmacies

19 or to secondary distributors?

20 Dr. Pion?

21 DR. PION: They certainly are not looked upon

22 kindly, but also, I think it makes us sad that

23 colleagues can't support themselves by providing services

24 and need to look for other ways. I talk to veterinarians

25 every day now who are going bankrupt, and that makes me
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1 worry about the future of our profession and the ability to

2 provide the services and the relationship that everybody

3 here seems to value so highly.

4 So, in some ways, I can understand the

5 desperation of some, and I don't understand those who

6 purely get into it when they don't need that. I'm not

7 justifying it in any way. I see it outside the way

8 things are supposed to be, but I see that a lot in the

9 world.

10 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

11 MS. JEX: I want to thank everyone for

12 submitting so many questions, I'm having a little

13 trouble figuring out how to ask them all. So, bear with

14 me.

15 There are several questions from the audience

16 that relate directly or indirectly to the issue of the

17 term "diversion" or "gray market." Many people are

18 familiar with the term "diversion" as used in the human

19 pharmaceutical market, which typically involves

20 counterfeit, adulterated or the illegal trade in

21 narcotics. In our workshop, we've been using the term

22 "secondary distribution," but the terms "diversion" and

23 "gray market" have also come up in the context of our

24 workshop today.

25 Could any panelist address the issue of how is
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1 diversion different in the animal pet medicines market

2 as opposed to the human pharmaceuticals market, and with

3 regard to the issue of secondary distribution, what is

4 the legality, the status of the legality of, for

5 example, a veterinarian who has a valid wholesaler

6 distributor's license, reselling prescription products

7 into the secondary distribution channel?

8 I apologize for the complexity of the question.

9 MS. WILKINSON: Yes, Mr. Jones?

10 MR. JONES: As you mentioned, the term

11 "diversion" in the human side of prescription drug

12 distribution generally always implies something illegal

13 occurring such as the diversion of controlled

14 substances, the diversion of complex special priced

15 medications within that system.

16 As far as the diversion of the veterinary

17 prescription drugs, as we've touched on here on the

18 panel, there are some very widely varying regulations

19 that deal with veterinary drug distribution, and some

20 states actually allow veterinarians to have a wholesale

21 license, and it's not illegal for the veterinarian to

22 wholesale their products. Some are allowed to actually

23 obtain a veterinary wholesale distribution license and

24 there are no specific audit trail requirements in

25 whether they buy under their veterinary license and sell
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1 under their wholesale license.

2 So, these terms “diversion” may not be as negative

3 in the veterinary industry related to the legality of them

4 as they are on the human side.

5 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

6 Mr. Smith?

7 MR. SMITH: So, just maybe a quick point of

8 clarification. First, I used to work for Walmart two

9 years ago, I no longer do. So, at some point I'm

10 reflecting back on some of the things that we were

11 working on and considering then.

12 As it relates to the way Walmart, and I presume

13 other retailers, work, when a product comes into

14 Walmart, vendors are required to indemnify the retailer

15 as to the integrity of the product, to the efficacy, the

16 safety of the product, that the product is what it

17 claims to be, and that's the requirement of the vendor

18 who delivers the product into Walmart.

19 The challenge a retailer has with diversion from

20 a legal perspective is that our preference is not to

21 divert product, because the chain of custody becomes

22 really problematic. We would prefer sourcing the

23 product from the manufacturer to know that that supply

24 chain has had all the integrity, all the controls. So,

25 diversion is something that creates this legal gray area
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1 as well, and it's not good for anybody when that legal

2 uncertainty exists.

3 I know Walmart, for one, would prefer to do

4 business with all these great manufacturers who provide

5 products to their human pharmacy. That's safer for

6 everyone involved, if that were the case.

7 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

8 I would like to move on now and discuss the

9 exclusive dealing arrangements that may exist between

10 some manufacturers and distributors. In particular, I'm

11 interested in understanding what are the business

12 rationales for these types of exclusive dealing

13 arrangements?

14 Mr. Vranian?

15 MR. VRANIAN: We don't have them. Novartis, on

16 behalf of Novartis, we don't use them, but we know they

17 exist out there. I would be interested in the

18 distribution perspective on this, but some context as to

19 the role of distribution within animal health is helpful

20 and we received some good context in the opening

21 comments. But it's absolutely essential in the

22 veterinary medication industry, if you have 25,000

23 customers out there -- so distributors have a sales force

24 that has a huge share of voice with these customers --

25 they're one-stop shopping for the veterinarian.
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1 Everything from Novartis products to syringes to latex

2 gloves, they can rely on their distributor for.

3 We have one of the most highly qualified or

4 highly respected sales forces in the industry, about 300

5 folks out in the field. But for every one visit that one

6 of our guys or one of our sales representatives has in

7 the field, they get five to seven from a distributor

8 rep. There's just a share of voice out there.

9 Most distributors deal with all manufacturers.

10 I think they pride themselves on the ability to carry

11 everything, to be one-stop shopping for everybody.

12 It's particularly relevant today, and that's

13 because distributors can be very effective when you're

14 launching a product, with that voice. What I

15 referenced earlier, the ability to launch the new

16 information, the science to a veterinarian, having that

17 presence within the clinic is very valuable. As our

18 industry shifts into more generics and we're seeing a

19 rise in generics, each generic in and of itself is a

20 launch, so to speak. So, the ability to leverage

21 distribution to that is a useful thing.

22 We've seen both sides of it. We've had

23 competing molecules to ours that have gone off patent

24 launch and become part of differentiated generics and

25 they've, through savvy use of distribution and certainly
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1 merits of the product, achieved extraordinary

2 penetration within a year. It's been good.

3 We've also been on the other end of it. We

4 recently launched a generic version of a blockbuster

5 product, and a differentiated generic, the one that had

6 the off-patent molecule with a compound that provided

7 superior efficacy. This product was well adopted by the

8 vets that adopted it, but we were unable to access

9 distributors. We presume that was due to an exclusive 

10 dealing arrangement. Obviously we don't know the 

11 details of it, but we achieved one, two percent penetration

12 on that product in a launch. You had a superior,

13 lower-priced product that was just not getting that

14 share of voice out there.

15 So, to the extent exclusive arrangements can be

16 done in a pro-competitive manner that may facilitate

17 lower prices or access to medicines, but to the extent

18 that they're done to protect from market forces, I think

19 that they're anti-competitive.

20 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

21 Mr. Cushing?

22 MR. CUSHING: Thank you. I appreciate the

23 explanation from Novartis.

24 First of all, it's much less common than you

25 might think, and the line between generics and pioneer
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1 of course changes. Bayer just announced it acquired Teva

2 on the animal side. So, our members of the AVDA

3 typically have between 20 and 50 generic products in

4 their portfolio. As counsel for Novartis said, it's a

5 very competitive business, multiple distributors carry

6 multiple manufacturers' products and that happens all

7 the time out there in the marketplace. Some

8 distributors are regional, a handful are national, and

9 the instances are very few. You can count on one hand,

10 I believe, you don't need all five digits to count to my

11 understanding the cases where there would be an 

12 exclusivity only as to a specific generic tied to a 

13 specific pioneer product. And there's a couple of those

14 instances, but this is not a typical practice and certainly 

15 not one on a scale that would, I think, concern the FTC. 

16 It's also not unlawful, to state that up front, but it's 

17 just not a common practice. So, I think it's much less of 

18 a concern.

19 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

20 Mr. Bane?

21 MR. BANE: It's become less of a concern, it's

22 actually changed over the last handful of years or so,

23 and there are fewer of these instances. I think it's

24 becoming less and less of a problem. In addition,

25 because of some of the newer business approaches, not
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1 everybody is under those same restrictions. In fact,

2 we've never signed an exclusivity contract with anyone.

3 We feel as though from a pharmacist's perspective, we

4 need to be able to provide those medications that we're

5 being requested to fulfill, so I have never signed an

6 exclusive arrangement with any manufacturer.

7 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

8 Mr. Smith?

9 MR. SMITH: I'm kind of confused by that because

10 I don't understand how access is being made available to

11 all pharmacists, it's just not true. A pharmacist can,

12 like a Walmart pharmacy, for instance, can secure the

13 drug if we're willing to work with a diverter, but there

14 is an exclusive distribution reality in terms of who the

15 product is going to and it's to certain distributors who

16 then in turn will not deliver it to Walmart.

17 I think it's important here to kind of talk

18 about exclusive distribution and what I think it

19 effectively does. From the manufacturer's perspective,

20 they're very happy to have brands that are effectively

21 supported by that recommendation of the veterinarian.

22 And as long as they can preserve a place where theirs is

23 the exclusive product that's being recommended, that's a

24 tremendous place to be when every consumer is interested

25 in following the advice and the counsel of their trusted
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1 veterinarian. The brand value associated with that vet

2 recommendation is I can charge higher prices, I can have

3 higher margins, because it's what the veterinarian has

4 established from a brand perspective as the most

5 efficacious, the most optimal medical treatment.

6 From the veterinarian's side, if they can avoid

7 a brand or a competing product, they have a challenge as

8 well, because they have a conflict of interest, because

9 their recommendation creates a lot of sway with the

10 consumer.

11 To the comment earlier -- “this is a solution

12 looking for a problem” -- I think there's a real problem

13 that needs a solution. And I think when you look at the

14 American Medical Association, and this is a quote from

15 the American Medical Association, I think I referenced

16 it, "Under no circumstances may physicians place their

17 own financial interest above the welfare of their

18 patients. If a conflict develops between the

19 physician's financial interest and the physician's

20 responsibility to the patient, the conflict must be

21 resolved to the patient's benefit." So, to me, the 

22 problem here is when an exclusive distribution is 

23 connected to the legal right to also prescribe, and it's 

24 in a limited number of places where that product can be

25 dispensed, you have a problem with a conflict of interest. 
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1 We don't dislike our human physicians, but we expect our 

2 human physicians to be completely objective and independent 

3 in the things that they prescribe to us, the medical 

4 direction they give us. And as long as there's a personal

5 interest in there, that can be really challenged. I think 

6 that's the problem that needs the solution.

7 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

8 Dr. Pion?

9 DR. PION: So, a couple of points. One, I think

10 when you look at 1406 and you look at the prior comment,

11 I don't think the focus really needs to be on the

12 veterinarian. I think if you look historically -- and your

13 question was more about manufacturer-distributor

14 relationships than it was to pharmacists, but of course

15 they're down the chain -- it is true that it's less of 

16 an issue today. But I don't think that was as much a 

17 voluntary choice as just the reality that as is happening 

18 in many industries, very much in the veterinary industry,

19 consolidation is taking place. The number of

20 distributors who came together and were bought up and

21 gobbled up, it just created confusion. Because now you

22 had to actually -- when the consolidation began,

23 actually that discussion happened, okay? You sell this

24 manufacturer and this manufacturer. When you

25 consolidate, you're going to have to choose. I think 
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1 eventually it got down to so few that that conversation 

2 didn't make sense anymore.

3 I don't think it's in anybody's best interest,

4 other than the manufacturers, to have those type of

5 exclusive relationships; not to the consumer, not to the

6 veterinarian, both for price, convenience and other

7 reasons. I think that it did lead to some predatory

8 practices. I mean, I think the place it still occurs in

9 our industry is in the veterinary lab sector and

10 especially in-house. I know that the FTC is

11 investigating that as well within our industry.

12 That involves distributor relationships as well,

13 where there are some of the larger lab providers are

14 playing unfairly and making it impossible for others to

15 compete.

16 So, I think the answer to your basic question is

17 that the restricted practices are in nobody's best

18 interest, other than the manufacturers.

19 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

20 Mr. Hinckle?

21 MR. HINCKLE: I'm not able to really comment on

22 the pervasiveness of these types of agreements, and it may

23 be that they're rare, I don't know. But what I can say

24 from my personal knowledge, what I've heard from

25 my clients, I've had at least one client tell me that
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1 they were considering launching what I would consider

2 more of a branded generic, much like Novartis was

3 talking about. So, these are generics in the sense that

4 they're approved through a pathway that relies somewhat

5 on a prior product, but the fact is they are sold as a

6 branded product through the veterinary channels directly

7 to vets. They opted to discontinue their R&D program,

8 because they felt like because of the exclusive

9 arrangements that were there, they were not going to be

10 able to get market penetration. That's one anecdotal

11 thing from my experience.

12 I would also say that there's a difference when

13 we're talking about generic products because those

14 branded generics that compete with the brands as a brand

15 product with a sales force through the veterinary

16 channels versus what one would consider on the human

17 side a more typical straight generic that's sold maybe

18 even without a brand name in a retail pharmacy and

19 relies on pharmacy substitution or drug selection

20 depending on the state laws where the pharmacist

21 actually makes the switch in the pharmacy.

22 That's what I've pointed out before is really

23 missing in the animal drug market now.

24 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

25 Finally, Mr. Cushing?
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1 MR. CUSHING: Yes, just two points to respond to

2 my colleague. First, we were talking, there's two types

3 of exclusivity, and I think you may have been thinking

4 this statement was made that there's not a number of

5 exclusive relationships vis-a-vis veterinarians. Yes,

6 there are exclusive vet channels. We were discussing, I

7 thought, the issue of exclusivity in terms of very

8 limited practices where a manufacturer would say to a

9 distributor, if you carry X, you can't carry Y, that was

10 the comment made there, and that was quite limited.

11 However, having the microphone, I do want to

12 comment that I think, and I'll just be blunt, I think

13 it's superficially appealing, but I think it's unfair to

14 veterinarians to create this drama around a so-called

15 conflict of interest that they have and that they're

16 somehow placing pricing burdens on their clients.

17 Number one, I just don't think that factually

18 describes what happens. And secondly, veterinarians, all

19 day long, utilize a whole host of medications, many of

20 which are human, many of which are prescribed through

21 pharmacies, to address their clients' pets' needs, and I

22 don't think there's this calculation going on that somehow

23 they’re attempting to maximize their revenue via 

24 some preferred branded product. I think that theory sounds

25 attractive and would get people excited. I hate to
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1 disappoint folks, I don't think that's the reality of

2 the U.S. veterinary practice. I think if it was, you

3 would have seen consumers storming Congress when there were

4 efforts made by parties supporting 1406, there was a

5 broad social media effort to get consumers to go to

6 Congress and show your concern about this practice.

7 Hence my solution in search of a problem, because guess

8 what, the phones didn't ring, the emails didn't fly.

9 You didn't see pet owners perceiving that they were in

10 the sort of vise that's been described, and I just don't

11 think that's the factual case and for that reason

12 Congress hasn't taken any interest after two years.

13 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

14 Mr. Hinckle, would you like to briefly respond?

15 MR. HINCKLE: No, I'm sorry.

16 MS. WILKINSON: I saw your placard up. So, we

17 are technically --

18 MR. POWERS: I have a response.

19 MS. WILKINSON: Brief response, Mr. Powers?

20 MR. POWERS: I disagree once again with

21 Mr. Cushing down there. I do believe there's a problem.

22 I believe that 1406 may or may not be a bad bill, we can

23 discuss that this afternoon, but I don't think as many

24 consumers, pet consumers knew about that or were able to

25 be as reactive to that as Mr. Cushing stated. I do
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1 think there is a distribution problem. Again, Dr. Pion

2 said that veterinarians shouldn't care whether the

3 channels of distribution are open or not, and he laid

4 the blame at the feet of the manufacturers. I agree

5 with him. And for the life of me, with all due respect

6 to Mr. Vranian, I don't understand why companies like

7 his or Pfizer restrict distribution to a company like

8 ours who has both veterinarians and pharmacists on

9 staff. Thank you.

10 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

11 We are technically at the stopping point for

12 this panel, but I think it would be important to try to

13 go into some of the safety issues that we were planning

14 to get to. If people on the panel are willing to spend

15 another maybe five to ten minutes discussing, I think it

16 might be worthwhile to extend our time a bit. Is that

17 all right with everyone? Okay. We'll try to move

18 through this very quickly.

19 What product safety issues exist with respect to

20 the secondary distribution system that people feel

21 haven't already been addressed?

22 MR. BANE: I'm not sure that they haven't

23 already been addressed. As Gregg said, from the NABP,

24 the regulations vary from state to state. I'm no JD, but

25 have read more than I care to remember about the
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1 distribution requirements from state to state, and there

2 are concerns that when we have what's called a normal

3 distribution supply chain on the human side that's

4 regulated by pedigree, that was put in place for a

5 reason. There were tremendous abuses going on. If

6 anybody wants a good read, Dangerous Doses is a

7 fantastic historical account of exactly why those rules

8 were put in place.

9 I think that some of the practices today create

10 these loopholes whereby it's just a matter of time

11 before there's some adulterated or counterfeit product

12 that's going to be placed in the marketplace. Arguments

13 are that maybe these compounds aren't that important and

14 the criminals will focus their efforts elsewhere. But

15 certain shortages in the marketplace and existing demand

16 by consumers I think will ultimately lead to some places

17 whereby these products can enter through a non-regulated

18 mechanism into the channel and there's potential dangers

19 there.

20 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

21 Mr. Miller?

22 MR. MILLER: A very interesting question given

23 some recent discussions on the FDA side, specifically as

24 they pertain to human drug shortage issues. And what has

25 cropped up in response to that with gray market, where
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1 pharmacies purchase then sell back to other wholesalers,

2 who sell to other tertiary wholesalers, who sell to other

3 pharmacies. And what you see is this massive churn in

4 the system. And where the safety issues start to come in,

5 as those of us, the pharmacists on the panel, my

6 preference is to always purchase either directly from

7 the manufacturer, or through a wholesaler who has a

8 direct relationship that is licensed and regulated.

9 The minute we start, as I mentioned before in my

10 own presentation, when I have to obtain a product from a

11 veterinarian because I can't buy it through my regular

12 channel, two types of safety start to play a

13 part of it. Number one is, how is that medication

14 handled? Was it stored appropriately? Did it go

15 through the appropriate environmental handling methods

16 that we expect?

17 The second is, is it what it is? Because the

18 minute that you start introducing an additional player --

19 a veterinarian who sells to a pharmacy, a pharmacy that

20 sells to a secondary supplier, a veterinarian that sells

21 to a wholesaler -- you give the opportunity, as you were

22 just saying, to have diversion in the truest sense,

23 which is the introduction of false or counterfeit

24 medications into the system. The minute I don't know

25 where this came from, as a pharmacist, as a
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1 practitioner, as a veterinarian, then there is a safety

2 issue.

3 The unfortunate thing -- and we see this on the

4 human side, it's even worse on the veterinarian side -- is

5 if we have treatment failure because of a medication,

6 we don't know because of the current marketplace whether

7 that medication didn't work or it's not what it says it 

8 was. Because I don't have that assurance of the supply 

9 chain integrity that I should have, but has unfortunately 

10 been manipulated by relationships between manufacturers 

11 and the terms that they place on the wholesale distribution

12 system or veterinarians themselves.

13 We need to open the marketplace up so that

14 legitimate, licensed pharmacies can purchase the same

15 way that a veterinarian can purchase from either

16 directly a manufacturer or wholesaler. Then there will

17 be no need for a secondary market.

18 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

19 Finally, Dr. Pion?

20 DR. PION: I think just for completeness, since

21 I think we've covered most of the issues, there’s one

22 indicator that I think the market has gotten much more

23 open but a source of question of how deep the diversion

24 definition went in this market is in years past there

25 was a significant amount of the online pharmacies, et
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1 cetera, that would deliver products that were registered

2 for outside this country coming in, Australian products

3 and other countries. And I think it speaks to how open

4 the market currently is that I really don't hear that

5 from colleagues that clients aren't coming in with those

6 products anymore. So, it seems like there is adequate

7 openness to the chain at this moment.

8 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

9 Moving quickly through this, there have been a

10 number of concerns raised today about pharmacists who

11 may be untrained in veterinary pharmacology dispensing

12 pet medications. I have a few questions about that.

13 One is could manufacturers of pet medications provide

14 product training to retail pharmacists similar to the

15 types of training they provide to veterinarians? If

16 anybody would like to respond to that.

17 Mr. Vranian, you're the manufacturer on the

18 panel, so you might be the obvious place to start.

19 MR. VRANIAN: To the extent that doing so would

20 enhance the quality of pet care, absolutely. But as I

21 mentioned earlier, we have a $2 million market product

22 and -- I don't know how many -- 60,000 pharmacists around

23 the country. It may wind up increasing the price of 

24 certain products. But our primary goal is the quality of

25 life for the animal.
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1 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

2 Mr. Dayton?

3 MR. DAYTON: As I said in my presentation, a

4 pharmacist might not always know the answer to every

5 question. But it was mentioned earlier that if you have

6 a package insert that is the way a pharmacist, when they

7 do not know information, gathers information and uses it.

8 So, if we have the package insert coming from a

9 manufacturer, we have a better chance to answer

10 questions and dispense medication properly. So, I think 

11 that it addresses the safety. Dr. Pion in his presentation 

12 addressed that pharmacists are already a trusted partner 

13 in the medications that we do dispense. If the market 

14 is opened up, we have access to that information. I feel 

15 that pharmacists can continue to be that trusted partner.

16 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

17 Mr. Miller?

18 MR. MILLER: The question was whether the

19 manufacturing industry has a responsibility to educate

20 the pharmacy profession. I would say absolutely not.

21 That is ultimately our responsibility. It needs to fall

22 within our curriculum, it needs to fall within the

23 continuing professional education, our board

24 certification processes, the specialty that pharmacy

25 has, just as any other health care profession does.
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1 Having come from the pharmaceutical industry and

2 having worked in education, the objective of a

3 manufacturer is not to teach how to, but rather to teach

4 about the product that they are bringing to market, the

5 particular therapeutic class, where it fits, new diagnosis, 

6 new trends.

7 So, I think we have an obligation as pharmacists

8 to train ourselves. We need to do that collaboratively

9 through our professional organizations, with AVMA, but

10 most especially, and I want to re-emphasize this,

11 because it's been mentioned a few times and I find it

12 personally very disturbing as a practitioner. You know

13 what, if a pharmacist is making an error or making a

14 judgment call that is inappropriate, there is a way to

15 handle that. And that is actually through our boards of

16 pharmacy. If a pharmacist changed a human prescription,

17 without calling the doctor, that's illegal. It's like

18 pharmacy 101. It's illegal. We're not allowed to do

19 that. And you guys will come and get me.

20 It should never happen in the veterinary

21 industry either. I will tell you right now, AVMA, if

22 you know of instances, you need to get that in front of

23 our boards of pharmacy because that is not the way

24 practice is done. This is collaboration. Ultimately,

25 pharmacists, vets, need to train each other on how best
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1 to work together, not the manufacturers.

2 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

3 I'm going to give Mr. Cushing and Dr. Pion a

4 chance to respond, but just in follow-up to what

5 Mr. Miller just raised, should retail pharmacies or

6 pharmacy schools be offering veterinary pharmacology

7 training to pharmacists?

8 Mr. Miller?

9 MR. MILLER: Yeah, that's a no-brainer, sorry,

10 Stephanie. Yeah, of course, we should.

11 MS. WILKINSON: I wondered if anybody else

12 wanted to respond to that.

13 Okay, Mr. Cushing?

14 MR. CUSHING: Thank you. I think, first of all,

15 the key is for pharmacists, which most do, to understand

16 that if they are inclined to change and not deliver the

17 product that was prescribed by the veterinarian, pick up

18 the phone and call. I mean, that's the most basic idea

19 here. I will say, had we had state VMA officials

20 participate, you would have heard it is not an easy

21 thing. And there have been many efforts in many states

22 to work with state boards of pharmacy. And as you may

23 expect, some are easier to work with than others. Some

24 are more successful than others. It's to get the pet

25 owner, the veterinarian may hear about it much later to
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1 get in and make sure you've got all the evidence to go

2 to a state board of pharmacy and begin a proceeding.

3 It's complicated. People can decide it may or may not be

4 worth their effort to do. There's a lot of ongoing

5 discussion. I know in the case of Oregon, the Oregon

6 VMA and the State Board of Pharmacy talk all the time. And

7 unfortunately, it's not as simple -- and I'm sure you

8 don't think that -- but it's not as simple as it may sound

9 and there's a lot of ongoing effort to try to do that.

10 You're right, that's what should ultimately

11 happen, because the state board of pharmacy should say,

12 don't do that, and stop that practice.

13 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

14 Dr. Pion?

15 DR. PION: So, I think in theory it sounds easy,

16 and that label is clear and confusing. But the reality

17 is, in our profession, off-label usage, whether a

18 veterinary product or non-veterinary product, is the

19 majority of usage. And much of that information is

20 generated after the product's released. It costs the

21 manufacturer a huge amount to go back for another

22 indication, another label. They don't want to change

23 that label. If the product is out there, and the

24 profession is learning how to use it and evolving and

25 finding other uses, that's what they want. It's not
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1 even just off-label at indication, it's moving it into

2 other species. Most of the time a product gets into

3 another market just for one species or two species and

4 then they're looking to refine where we can use it in

5 other species. There's many indications where the label 

6 dose is wrong, and it doesn't go back and get changed. 

7 But it's through collegial communication that it gets

8 communicated that this is a better dose, and you can

9 follow that in many ways.

10 Just to address the simplicity of reporting

11 things to the boards, I know in our work, we have called

12 many veterinary boards, many pharmacy boards, on

13 pharmacy issues, and often there's confusion in the

14 states about who's responsible. We call the pharmacy 

15 board, they say, why are you calling us, call the

16 veterinary board. We call the veterinary board, they 

17 say, why are you calling us, call the pharmacy board. 

18 And they don't even know if diversion, as we've defined 

19 it here, is legal or illegal. They don't know if in 

20 their states veterinarians can resell prescription drugs. 

21 So, I think there's many levels here that contribute to 

22 the situation where we're at.

23 MS. WILKINSON: Thank you.

24 One final question that I will probably pose to

25 Mr. Vranian, what position do manufacturers take on
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1 whether to guarantee products that are distributed

2 through the secondary distribution system, and do

3 manufacturers have concerns about product liability

4 issues in the event that consumers purchase either

5 expired or adulterated products from retailers?

6 MR. VRANIAN: We certainly have those issues

7 with adulterated products, which underscores some of

8 our distribution practices that we've discussed earlier.

9 On the product support, I think you need to

10 differentiate between technical medical support and

11 perhaps commercial premiums or premium support, for lack

12 of a better term.

13 We provide technical support irrespective of

14 origin. Everything, no matter where somebody bought a

15 product, is reported to the FDA as an adverse event and

16 that adverse event is logged and becomes part of the

17 technical support record.

18 Where a veterinarian is involved, one of our

19 voluntary policies is to provide reimbursed diagnostic

20 costs where our product may have failed or where

21 efficacy could be an issue or have caused an adverse

22 event. Necessarily a veterinarian needs to be involved

23 in that equation. There's patient records, there's a

24 history of that patient. So where that's initiated by

25 the veterinarian, which is who we usually get the call
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1 from, the origin of the call does not make the

2 determination.

3 Now, if somebody calls us from the street and

4 they've purchased it from the secondary market and

5 demands free product, that will probably be the end of

6 the discussion right there and that's just not something

7 we do. Each of these is honestly looked at on a

8 case-by-case basis, but that diagnostic reimbursement

9 guarantee is what I would call our premium level

10 support, and honestly, where a veterinarian is involved,

11 where they initiate, it is not determined by product

12 origin.

13 MS. WILKINSON: Mr. Powers, if you would like to

14 briefly respond?

15 MR. POWERS: The second part of that you asked,

16 Stephanie, what about expired product, et cetera. I

17 think as David Miller suggested, the easiest way to

18 solve the distribution channel issue in secondary

19 distribution in gray markets is for the manufacturer to 

20 have direct relationships through themselves or through

21 authorized distributors with companies like ours. When

22 you talk about old or outdated product, ironically -- 

23 and I don't mean to cast any aspersions on the veterinary

24 profession, some of my best friends are veterinarians --

25 an article this summer in DVM Magazine reported when in
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1 Massachusetts they inspected veterinary clinics, 20 percent

2 of those clinics had misused, expired or poorly handled

3 products. In some cases it was the second or third

4 offense of those clinics.

5 So, the issue of product viability, efficacy,

6 and whether outdated or not, extends throughout the

7 channel, and I think it needs to be policed at every

8 level. One of the things that companies like ours and

9 other people here who are Vet-VIPPS certified do is they

10 have a prescribed policy for handling product and how

11 the product is stored and they have to follow it or they

12 lose certification.

13 MS. WILKINSON: We have definitely gone way over

14 our time and I think in order for people to have enough

15 time to eat lunch before our afternoon sessions we do

16 probably need to end the discussion.

17 I would like to thank all of our panelists for

18 their participation. I think this has been a really

19 interesting and informative discussion. If everyone

20 would please join me in a round of applause for our

21 panelists.

22 (Applause.)

23 MS. WILKINSON: So, we'll now take a short

24 lunch break and meet back here at 1:00 for our

25 afternoon panels. There are hand-outs out in the
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1 hallway about lunch venues that are nearby and many of them

2 move very quickly. Thank you.

3 (Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., a lunch recess was

4 taken.)

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1 AFTERNOON SESSION

2 (1:02 p.m.)

3 PANEL TWO

4 PORTABILITY OF PRESCRIPTION PET MEDICATIONS

5 MS. KOSLOV: I think we will go ahead and get

6 started with our afternoon session, if everyone could

7 please take their seats.

8 Good afternoon, everyone, thanks for coming back

9 from lunch. My name is Tara Koslov. I am the deputy

10 director of the FTC's Office of Policy Planning, and on

11 behalf of all of us, I would like to thank you again for

12 coming to our workshop. I would especially like to

13 thank this morning's panelists and presenters for their

14 excellent presentations and discussion.

15 In our first panel this afternoon, which focuses

16 on prescription portability, we hope to really

17 build on some of the topics we heard about this morning

18 and see where we can go from there.

19 One thing that's become clear from what we've

20 heard so far is that any discussion of what's best for

21 consumers and their pets has to start by recognizing the

22 importance of the Veterinarian-Client-Patient-Relationship. 

23 Of course, pets should be properly examined and diagnosed 

24 by a veterinarian so that the vet can determine the 

25 appropriate course of treatment and that might include 
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1 the prescription of medication.

2 So, with that context and framing in mind, what

3 we hope to focus on in the next session today is what's

4 the best way to handle the dispensing of pet

5 medications, assuming that there is a prescription for

6 medication.

7 Historically, vets have done most of the

8 dispensing and selling of pet medications, not just the

9 providing of the medication, but also providing

10 important information and counseling to ensure proper

11 administration of drugs. But as we heard this morning,

12 there are other alternatives that have become more

13 prevalent in the pet meds marketplace, in particular

14 over the last ten years, as we've heard, there has been

15 a larger presence not only by brick-and-mortar, but also

16 online retail pharmacies. And it seems that more consumers

17 are, indeed, asking their vets for portable

18 prescriptions so that they can shop around among

19 alternative sources.

20 The issue of prescription portability clearly

21 implicates a very complex network of state-by-state laws

22 and regulations. So, to start our afternoon's

23 discussion, in order to provide us with a foundation for

24 the subsequent panel discussion, we are going to begin

25 with an overview presentation by Adrian Hochstadt. He
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1 is the director of the AVMA's State Legislative and

2 Regulatory Affairs Division. He is going to explain some

3 of the basic issues and applicable state and federal

4 policies on prescribing and dispensing pet medications.

5 He will also provide us with a brief summary of H.R.

6 1406, the legislation that we heard a little bit about

7 this morning which would mandate, among other things,

8 that vets provide written prescriptions.

9 After Mr. Hochstadt's presentation, we will ask

10 our panelists to quickly yet gracefully get themselves

11 to the table, and we will explore a variety of factual

12 and policy questions relating to the provision of

13 prescriptions to pet owners following a similar format

14 to this morning.

15 So, Mr. Hochstadt, you are welcome to come up.

16 Thanks.

17 MR. HOCHSTADT: Thank you, Ms. Koslov. It's a

18 pleasure to be here. So, I'm going to introduce the

19 second panel. We'll try to keep the flow going after

20 lunch. Hopefully everybody is back.

21 I'm going to cover quickly some of the basic

22 tenets of prescription writing and dispensing. 

23 I want to touch on the AVMA Principles of Veterinary

24 Medical Ethics, talk a little bit about state regulation

25 in this area, and also go over the basic elements of H.R.
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1 1406.

2 So, let's get right to it. The basic tenets of

3 prescription writing. Pet medications are either

4 dispensed by a veterinarian as medically indicated, or the

5 veterinarian provides a written prescription to a client

6 who may then have the prescription dispensed at the

7 pharmacy of his or her choice, either retail or online.

8 Prescriptions sometimes are provided by fax or

9 telephone, although that's subject to state rules, and

10 also DEA rules on controlled substances.

11 Traditionally, we've heard that veterinarians

12 stock and dispense pet medications due to his or her

13 specialized knowledge and training, and the fact that

14 pharmacies didn't stock many animal drugs years and

15 years ago. It was seen, and I think it still is, as one

16 product of a larger service provided by that

17 veterinarian.

18 In the last 30 years or so, we have seen more

19 pharmacies, especially online, selling pet medications

20 and prescriptions are being written. What caught my

21 attention is a study referenced in the AVDA comments

22 submitted to the FTC. During a 12-month period, in

23 2010-2011, more than 45,000 veterinarians provided more

24 than four million prescriptions to be filled through a

25 retail pharmacy location. So, these prescriptions are
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1 being written. Under state laws and FDA rules, however, a

2 pharmacy may only dispense a pet drug, pet medication to

3 the client with a prescription from a veterinarian.

4 You heard a little bit about the Veterinarian5 Client-Patient-Relationship, the VCPR. This is a

6 critical piece at arriving at a decision that a

7 prescription drug is needed. It's based on the

8 lifestyle of the client, the needs of the animal, and

9 the specific needs based on the situation.

10 A veterinarian may fulfill pharmacy-initiated

11 requests, but only if medically appropriate, and in most

12 states, within a VCPR that I mentioned.

13 Let me touch on the AVMA Principles of

14 Veterinary Medical Ethics. Something was brought up

15 during the first panel a little bit. This is a code of

16 ethics. Like all the other code of ethics, they're

17 basically the defining rules of what's right and what's

18 wrong within a given profession. They were developed in

19 the 19th Century in the learned professions, law and

20 medicine primarily, and the essence of veterinary

21 medical ethics was captured by one of the founders of

22 veterinary medicine in the U.S., Alexandre Liautard, not

23 for ourselves alone, or non nobis solum. And this is

24 probably the last time that you will hear a Latin phrase

25 today.
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1 The AVMA approved the Principles of Veterinary

2 Medical Ethics for the first time in 1867 to promote

3 exemplary professional conduct and uphold the dignity of

4 the profession. The document, of course, is revised as

5 need be, to assure relevance to current professional

6 practices and expectations.

7 The AVMA Principles address professional

8 behavior in a number of areas, ranging from what's

9 appropriate in consulting and referring clients, what

10 are improper influences on judgment, keeping appropriate

11 medical records, inappropriate fee arrangements,

12 advertising, and the topic under examination today, the

13 prescribing and dispensing of products to clients for

14 use on their animals.

15 As explained previously, state governments

16 license, regulate, and discipline veterinarians. So,

17 while the AVMA Principles on their own are not

18 enforceable, keep in mind that 12 states have

19 incorporated these Principles into their disciplinary

20 standards. And in the other states, certainly the

21 AVMA Principles are a guiding tool to help those state

22 veterinary boards determine what is unprofessional

23 conduct.

24 Section III(c) of the AVMA Principles state that

25 dispensing or prescribing a prescription product
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1 requires a VCPR. Now, almost every state has adopted

2 this language in some form. The VCPR is required for

3 treating a patient, but also for prescribing or

4 dispensing.

5 The VCPR requirement is also specifically

6 incorporated into the federal rules in three places,

7 which I'm going to show briefly. I don't plan on going

8 into too much depth here. I wanted you to have the Code

9 of Federal Regulations citation if anyone wants to do

10 some follow-up on this, but autogenous biologics is one

11 area, extra label drug use, VCPR definition was

12 incorporated in this FDA rule, and veterinary fee

13 directive, which applies more to food animals, but I did

14 want to mention that the VCPR is also mentioned in those

15 requirements.

16 Another AVMA Principles provision that is of

17 interest here is paragraph III(c), a veterinarian should

18 honor a client's request for a prescription in lieu of

19 dispensing. Now, let's take a look at how states have

20 addressed this provision. We have the 17 states that

21 you see in green, that have a specific law or regulation

22 or policy statement that basically mirrors that

23 provision of the AVMA Principles that clients, when they

24 request a prescription, the veterinarian should honor

25 that client's request.
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1 So, we have these 17 states. In an additional

2 ten states, the AVMA Principles of Veterinary Medical

3 Ethics, which again, incorporate that provision,

4 officially is part of the disciplinary rules. There's

5 some overlap. There are two states with both a specific

6 law and which have incorporated the Principles. But the

7 total, if you take the two groups, you're looking at 27

8 states with something specific in writing on the books

9 that require a veterinarian to honor that client's

10 request.

11 So, what happens in the other 23 states? I'm

12 sorry, let me mention a couple of unique regulations

13 that have to do more with notice, providing notice.

14 Arizona, for example, has a law -- it's actually an

15 administrative regulation -- that requires a dispensing

16 veterinarian to notify the owner that some prescription

17 drugs and controlled substances may be available at a

18 pharmacy, and there are three ways of providing this

19 notice. Note that under paragraph (B), however, a

20 dispensing veterinarian may -- and it's permissive, not

21 mandatory -- may provide a written prescription to the

22 owner if requested.

23 Well, California has a slightly different

24 statute there. The prescriber also must offer notice,

25 but also the prescriber in California, prior to
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1 dispensing, must offer to give a written prescription to

2 the patient that the patient can then elect to have

3 filled with a pharmacy, or with a prescriber. So,

4 California has a notice requirement, and in addition to

5 that, also a requirement that the prescriber must offer

6 to write a prescription.

7 Before we leave California, though, I did want

8 to talk a little bit about the other 23 states, because

9 I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression.

10 It's important to note that even in states without

11 specific laws or regulations, the state boards of

12 veterinary medicine, as we heard before, regulate the

13 profession. They could easily find in acting on a

14 complaint that failure to honor a client's request for a

15 prescription constitutes unprofessional conduct, which

16 can lead to discipline.

17 Unprofessional conduct generally refers to a

18 departure from or failure to conform to the standards of

19 acceptable and prevailing practice of veterinary

20 medicine. State boards do routinely look at the AVMA

21 Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics as a guiding

22 tool or principle in how to define unprofessional

23 conduct.

24 In addition to the threat of disciplinary

25 action, veterinarians also have some other practical
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1 disincentives for not honoring a client's request,

2 whether those are business reasons; alienating the

3 client is probably not a real good idea; or even the

4 threat of legal exposure when that particular pet needs

5 medication on a timely basis, and failure to honor that

6 request for prescription could actually expose the

7 veterinarian to some liability.

8 So, let me touch on the pending Federal bill,

9 H.R. 1406, titled Fairness to Pet Owners Act. This is

10 legislation that was introduced in the U.S. House of

11 Representatives in April 2011 by Representative Jim

12 Matheson from Utah and Representative Lee Terry from

13 Nebraska. Congressional co-sponsors include

14 Representatives Phil Gingrey, Walter Jones, Jim Moran

15 and Jim Sensenbrenner.

16 H.R. 1406 would require veterinarians to provide

17 pet owners with a copy of the prescription, regardless

18 of whether the client requests a prescription; and

19 provide a written disclosure that the pet owner may fill

20 the prescription through the prescriber or through a

21 pharmacy determined by the pet owner; and finally, it

22 would require that the veterinarian must provide or

23 verify the prescription by electronic or other means to

24 any person designated to act on behalf of the owner.

25 The legislation also would prohibit
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1 veterinarians from requiring owners to purchase a

2 prescribed drug as a condition for providing that

3 prescription; would prohibit requiring payment for

4 providing or verifying a prescription; and would

5 prohibit requiring an owner to sign a waiver or disclaim

6 liability as a condition of providing or verifying a

7 prescription.

8 H.R. 1406 would also require the FTC to

9 promulgate rules implementing and enforcing the act

10 within 180 days of its enactment and violations of the

11 rule would be treated as unfair or deceptive practice

12 under the Federal Trade Commission Act.

13 While the AVMA is supportive of a client's

14 ability to have a copy of the written prescription

15 should they request it, AVMA, as you've heard earlier

16 today, strongly opposes this federal mandate every time

17 a written prescription is prescribed, and we look

18 forward to explaining our rationale the rest of today.

19 I want to mention, there are other organizations

20 opposed to this legislation, including some in the

21 pharmacy community, such as the American Veterinary

22 Distributors Association and the Society of Veterinary

23 Hospital Pharmacists, and they are also opposed to

24 federal mandates when the states are governing this

25 issue adequately.
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1 That's my presentation, and thank you for your

2 attention.

3 (Applause.)

4 MS. KOSLOV: While we have all of our panelists

5 coming up and taking their seats, I will remind,

6 especially those who are watching via webcast, that you are

7 welcome to submit questions at the hash tag #FTCpets. We

8 will also be taking questions here on comment cards if

9 anyone in the audience wants to pass them along.

10 I would also like to take this opportunity to

11 introduce my co-moderator, my colleague Christopher

12 Grengs, also from the Office of Policy Planning.

13 So, we will follow a similar format here. We're

14 going to have each of the panelists make brief

15 introductory presentations and then we will move to a

16 panel discussion.

17 We are going to start with Dr. Race Foster. He

18 is a licensed veterinarian and co-owner of Drs. Foster &

19 Smith Pet Supplies.

20 DR. FOSTER: I would like to thank the FTC for

21 inviting me to come participate. My name is Dr. Race 

22 Foster. I have had the privilege of serving the pet 

23 supply and pharmacy needs of American pet owners for 29 

24 years through our company, Drs. Foster & Smith.

25 In addition to being a licensed and practicing
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1 veterinarian, we have three other veterinarians on staff

2 and have a full team of pharmacists to sell

3 prescriptions in all 50 states. Our pharmacy is both

4 Vet-VIPPS and PCAB certified. For 29 years, we have

5 dispensed thousands of prescriptions each year and have

6 never had a single state or federal dispensing violation

7 or even a reprimand. That is a record I am very proud

8 of.

9 It is our sterling pharmacy record that is one

10 of the frustrating touch points regarding the subjects

11 being discussed at this workshop, namely restricted

12 distribution and prescription portability. In my

13 definition, portability ends with filling the

14 prescription, not just obtaining it. What I mean is 

15 that you cannot have true prescription portability 

16 without medication availability. So, while this panel 

17 is discussing prescription portability, written 

18 prescriptions are worthless without a product supply.

19 Today, in our pharmacy, we have more

20 prescriptions on file than we are allowed drugs to fill.

21 And I hope you don't forget that point, because I heard

22 in this morning's session that drugs were freely

23 available. Not.

24 The reason I suggest that our sterling record is

25 a frustrating touch point regarding prescription
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1 portability, is the false impression some drug

2 manufacturers create as they suggest to the public or

3 clients that all online pharmacies are not trustworthy.

4 We have a proven track record and the appropriate

5 accreditations showing that we are trustworthy.

6 The AVMA suggests that Vet-VIPPS certification

7 is something a veterinarian and their client should look

8 for when evaluating an Internet pharmacy. We have that

9 certification. And just so you know, to be Vet-VIPPS

10 certified, pharmacists have to do the dispensing. So, 

11 I'm not sure why sometimes we question that. It's if you 

12 want to be Vet-VIPPS certified, which is what the AVMA 

13 suggested, you have to have pharmacists do the dispensing.

14 When it comes to compounding of medications, it

15 is PCAB accreditation that matters. We have that

16 accreditation. When it comes to pharmaceutical

17 qualifications, we have a pharmacy license to fill

18 prescriptions, even human prescriptions, in all 50

19 states. When it comes to the question of understanding

20 how medications affect animals, we are a company owned

21 by veterinarians, which has veterinarians on staff. I

22 am a veterinarian. We have both veterinary and pharmacy

23 qualifications. You can imagine our frustration when

24 the very drug companies that will sell us human

25 medications refuse to sell us pet medications, implying
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1 that such medications should only be dispensed through

2 veterinarians. I am a veterinarian. Moreover, do they 

3 really mean to say that we are qualified to dispense 

4 medication for a child but we are not qualified to 

5 dispense medications for a dog or cat?

6 Now, in closing, let me get that straight. Our

7 pharmacy has veterinarians and pharmacists on staff

8 every day. We have over 80 years combined experience

9 amongst the veterinarians, thirty right here. We have

10 over 150 years combined experience in our pharmacists.

11 We are FDA-inspected, DEA-inspected, Vet-VIPPS

12 certified, PCAB certified, and have never had a single

13 violation in 29 years.

14 We can buy all human drugs from companies such

15 as Pfizer, Merial and Lilly to fill your prescriptions

16 for you and your kids. But somehow I'm not qualified to

17 buy their medications to fill prescriptions for your cat

18 or even your pet rat? I mean, does it make sense to any pet

19 owner in the audience? Really?

20 And while this may sound like a subject for the

21 previous panel on restricted distribution, it is not.

22 Prescription portability cannot exist without medication

23 availability. I think pet owners deserve better.

24 Thank you.

25 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Dr. Foster.
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1 Next, we welcome back Nate Smith, previously a

2 retail product strategist at Walmart.

3 MR. SMITH: Thanks for having me back, and

4 thanks for the workshop.

5 I commend the Federal Trade Commission for

6 starting into this, and as I mentioned before, I think

7 this needs to be the start of a process of creating a

8 solution.

9 As Dr. Foster has pointed out, right now, if

10 your child needs medication, you as a consumer have

11 protection. The doctor gives you a copy of the

12 prescription, without you having to ask, sign a waiver

13 or pay a fee. You can take that prescription to the

14 pharmacy of your choosing. Once you get there, you

15 frequently have the option of a generic alternative.

16 Alternatively, if your dog needs medication, you have no

17 right to automatically receive a copy of the

18 prescription. Once you get the prescription, you are

19 limited as to where you can go to get it filled. When

20 you do get it filled, odds are it will be with a name

21 brand pharmaceutical as opposed to a generic.

22 So, when your child needs an antibiotic, you can

23 go to a pharmacy and pay $4 or $5 for a full series of

24 antibiotics. When your dog needs the same antibiotic,

25 your vet will charge you $30 or $40 for the same
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1 treatment. Something is obviously amiss and we need to

2 change how this practice is working.

3 I have five points that I would like to make:

4 First, this is an issue which affects most Americans.

5 As was pointed out this morning, two-thirds of Americans

6 own a companion animal. We spend about $7 billion a

7 year on medicines and health-related products for our

8 pets. Many Americans, if not most, view their pets as

9 members of the family. They want the right to

10 comparison shop for their pet's medication, just like

11 they do for their own meds and for the meds of their

12 children. They do not understand why they cannot.

13 Number two, there is a central conflict of

14 interest where the veterinarian is also the retailer and

15 can prescribe or recommend brands sold exclusively

16 through prescribers. In a marketplace like this, the

17 government must set rules to assure consumer choice and

18 competition, just as the government has done with

19 eyeglasses and contact lenses. The government needs to

20 act, because the prescription requirement, plus the

21 inherent authority which comes from wearing a white

22 coat, puts the veterinarian in a unique position of

23 power. This power can be used by the veterinarians to

24 dictate the consumers' purchasing decisions, or in the

25 case of non-prescription products, to heavily influence
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1 what a consumer buys under the belief it is best for

2 their pet's health.

3 Number three, and I think potentially the most

4 important, having the prescription put directly and

5 automatically into the hands of the consumer, without

6 requiring the consumer to ask for it, sign a waiver or

7 pay a fee is absolutely key. That piece of paper lets

8 the consumer know he or she has a choice. It is the

9 most effective, most efficient means of creating a

10 consciousness of choice.

11 Number four, pet care is a discretionary

12 expense. If a choice is spurred and competition

13 encouraged, prices will drop, convenience will be

14 created, and Americans will buy more pet care to the

15 benefit of all, to the pet owner, to the manufacturers,

16 to the veterinarian communities, everyone.

17 Number five, we must not lose sight of the big

18 picture. This is a very tough economy. Every

19 indication is that it will stay tough for the

20 foreseeable future, and Americans at most income levels

21 are looking to save money. It is also a different

22 economy. Many families are burdened by severe time

23 constraints, so convenience matters. The Internet and

24 purchasing using the Internet has become the norm rather

25 than the exception. So, while a couple of decades ago,
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1 buying pet medication only from your vet may have been

2 the only practical choice, the world is much different

3 today.

4 The Federal Government is already in this

5 marketplace It bars pet owners from buying most

6 medications without a prescription. I hope the

7 government will step in again to allow this marketplace

8 to operate like those for other prescription items,

9 whether that is a prescription drug, eyeglasses, or

10 contact lenses. Doing so will allow consumers to reap 

11 the full benefit of technological advancement and have 

12 the freedom to purchase their pet meds where they want,

13 based on the best price, service and convenience.

14 It was a decade ago that the FTC, in issuing the

15 Eyeglass Rule, recognized that automatic prescription

16 release is essential to letting consumers know they have

17 a choice. As the FTC stated in its 1997 review of the

18 rule it issued, this automatic release requirement,

19 based on finding of consumers' lack of awareness that

20 eyeglasses could be purchased separate from the exam.

21 Automatic release is still the most effective and

22 efficient means of letting consumers know they have a

23 choice.

24 As the FTC stated in its 2004 review of the

25 Eyeglass Rule, "Release might not occur in the absence
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1 of a federal release requirement” and “release of

2 prescriptions enhances consumer choice at minimal

3 compliance cost to eye care practitioners. . ."

4 I urge the Commission to apply these same

5 principles and rules to pet meds.

6 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Mr. Smith.

7 Next we have Dr. Wendy Hauser. She's managing

8 DVM of Coal Creek Veterinary Hospital in Centennial,

9 Colorado.

10 DR. HAUSER: I am honored to participate in this

11 workshop examining the very complex issues surrounding

12 pet medications.

13 I am Dr. Wendy Hauser, I'm a small animal

14 practitioner, from Centennial, Colorado, which is in the

15 Denver metro area. I graduated in 1988 from Oklahoma

16 State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I

17 practiced as a small animal veterinarian in New Jersey,

18 Pennsylvania, and Parker, Colorado, prior to starting a

19 start-up veterinary hospital, Coal Creek Veterinary

20 Hospital, in 1998.

21 In 2008, I successfully transitioned from

22 practice ownership when I sold my hospital to a national

23 corporation. I continue to practice at Coal Creek where

24 I do serve as the managing DVM.

25 I am a veterinarian because I love helping
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1 people by helping their beloved pets. By forming strong

2 partnerships with my clients, my patients benefit.

3 During the course of a patient visit, client concerns

4 are identified, an examination occurs, and clinical

5 recommendations are presented. Those recommendations

6 may include diagnostics, lifestyle modifications, and

7 medications.

8 In prescribing medications to a pet, the best

9 medication for the disease process is the reason that I

10 select a drug. Additional considerations include:

11 species, age, size, breed, existing medical conditions,

12 potential for adverse drug reactions, and client input.

13 Client education and communication is critical for

14 satisfactory outcomes.

15 If there are several good options that exist,

16 dialogue with a client occurs, and that includes the

17 drug differences, also discussing cost. I routinely

18 offer to write prescriptions if I'm aware that there are

19 significant cost savings at human pharmacies. I acknowledge

20 that health care for pets is expensive, or can be

21 expensive, and I feel it's my obligation to lessen those

22 costs when possible.

23 Today we're examining pet medications,

24 specifically, and you haven't heard a lot about this,

25 but specifically in regard to H.R. 1406. There are
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1 significant concerns regarding this proposed

2 legislation. Those concerns include compliance and

3 safety. 

4 I feel confident that when I dispense a

5 medication to a client directly, that there's a high

6 likelihood that my patient is going to receive the

7 medication, cautionary adverse drug reaction statements are

8 printed on the label, and the client is directly

9 counseled regarding potential complications. When I 

10 provide a written prescription to a client, I don't 

11 know if that prescription gets filled, I don't know 

12 how it's filled, and I don't know what my client's told. 

13 Furthermore, default human adverse cautionary

14 statements are usually attached to those prescriptions,

15 which often times are not applicable to our veterinary

16 patients and create confusion.

17 I fail to see how my client and their pet

18 benefit from the latter scenario. I feel a tremendous

19 sense of responsibility for my patients' well-being.

20 Our veterinary oath dictates, and you've seen it once

21 already today, above all, do no harm. I believe if H.R.

22 1406 is enacted, that drug-induced adverse events will

23 occur and will cause harm.

24 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Dr. Hauser.

25 Next we welcome back Dr. Aspros, a practicing
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1 veterinarian and also president of the American

2 Veterinary Medical Association.

3 DR. ASPROS: Thank you. I am still Dr. Doug

4 Aspros, president of the American Veterinary Medical

5 Association, and represent the interests of more than

6 82,000 veterinarians, approximately 83 percent of the

7 profession. We're dedicated to the science and the art

8 of veterinary medicine.

9 I've practiced companion animal medicine in New

10 York since my graduation in 1975 from Cornell

11 University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I'm a

12 partner at Bond Animal Hospital in White Plains, New

13 York, and in Pound Ridge Veterinary Center in Pound

14 Ridge, New York. I'm also the managing partner of the

15 Veterinary Emergency Group in White Plains.

16 Every day, my staff and I strive to serve the

17 best interests of both our animal patients and, as Wendy

18 said, their human owners. Whether we're seeing a dog or

19 a cat, a bird or a lizard, a ferret or a rabbit, our

20 focus is on optimal care for that patient, and that care

21 often includes the prescribing or dispensing of an

22 animal product.

23 As we gather together to examine competition and

24 consumer protection issues in the pet medication

25 industry, I want to assure you that our utmost concern
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1 is with the well-being of our patients. The AVMA does,

2 therefore, have concerns with proposed federal

3 legislation and the underlying premise that there's a

4 need for such legislation. We stand behind AVMA's

5 Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, which

6 encourage veterinarians to honor a client's request for

7 written prescriptions, and we continue to educate

8 veterinarians about prescription drug rules and the

9 importance of following these Principles.

10 The proposed federal legislation, as written,

11 leaves veterinarians open to potential ethical and legal

12 liabilities and would negatively affect the strong bond

13 of trust that veterinarians have earned with their

14 clients. Pet owners may encounter misinformation or

15 inappropriate substitution from pharmacists who are not

16 trained in veterinary pharmacology, who are prepared to

17 discharge all of the responsibilities of a pharmacist

18 when dispensing to a pet. Even worse, it increases the

19 likelihood that pet owners will obtain counterfeit product

20 online. The AVMA believes that veterinarians are uniquely

21 qualified to provide professional guidance, support and 

22 education to pet owners when it comes to dispensing and

23 administering prescription products to pets.

24 While we are not supportive of a federal mandate

25 on veterinary prescription writing, the AVMA is
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1 supportive of clients' right to choose where they have

2 their prescriptions filled. We are, therefore, taking

3 several steps to promote optimal outcomes for consumers

4 who obtain prescription products for their pets from

5 independent pharmacies. We are interacting with pharmacy

6 stakeholders to help ensure that licensed pharmacists 

7 better understand their roles and responsibilities when it

8 comes to counseling and educating pet owners when filling

9 veterinary prescriptions. We are also collaborating with

10 pharmacy industry to help determine how best to train

11 licensed pharmacists on basic veterinary pharmacy issues.

12 We're honored by the ongoing confidence and

13 trust of pet owners and to be a part of this important

14 workshop, and we look forward to maintaining that trust.

15 Thanks.

16 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Dr. Aspros.

17 Next we'll hear from Dr. Elaine Blythe. She is 

18 a pharmacist, PharmD and an associate professor at St.

19 Matthew's School of Veterinary Medicine on Grand Cayman

20 Island.

21 DR. BLYTHE: Thank you.

22 I appreciate the invitation today from Chris and

23 his team. I have come here today to participate and

24 share some view points as a pharmacist educator. My

25 contributions to the panel discussion are focused on the
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1 educational offerings in veterinary pharmacy for

2 practicing pharmacists, as well as pharmacy students.

3 As a licensed pharmacist, I may also be able to

4 offer some insight into the changes that have occurred

5 to the practice of pharmacy via the advent of third

6 party payers, that is very common in the managed health

7 care market that we all experience today.

8 I'm a firm believer in the development of close

9 working relationships between pharmacists and

10 veterinarians. I think there is a tremendous amount of

11 opportunity for the two professions to work together

12 here for the betterment of animal health. I am an

13 absolute and firm believer in that.

14 But about some of the educational offerings that

15 are available out there today, with the support of the

16 University of Florida College of Pharmacy, I have

17 offered a two-credit hour online course in veterinary

18 pharmacy to any interested pharmacy student in the

19 nation -- and I also get students from outside the United

20 States –- that is open and available to, like I said, any

21 interested pharmacy student in the nation. The same

22 course materials are also available and open to any

23 interested practicing pharmacist in the United States in

24 a continuing education format.

25 So, to add some numbers to these, since the
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1 inception of the course in about 2003, I've educated

2 over 1,800 pharmacy students through this online course

3 offering, and I've educated over 200 practicing

4 pharmacists through the continuing education offering of

5 the same course materials.

6 In addition to this, I can also speak to,

7 perhaps later in the discussion, individual offerings

8 that are made at individual schools of pharmacy in

9 veterinary pharmacology, veterinary pharmacy in

10 face-to-face teaching formats, as well as advanced

11 pharmacy practice experiences typically called clinical

12 rotations.

13 To kind of give you an idea of the content of

14 these classes, for the most part, they certainly focus

15 on the most common, chronic and preventative medications

16 used in dogs and cats. They may be FDA-approved

17 medications, they may be compounded therapies that are

18 used to treat some of the most common conditions and

19 disease states that we see in dogs and cats, such as

20 heartworm preventatives, nonsteroidals for progressive

21 musculoskeletal disorders, drugs for diabetes, for other

22 endocrine type disorders, urinary incontinence, as well

23 as seizure control. Also a fair amount of space is

24 given to legal regulatory issues, as well as veterinary

25 informatics.
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1 Now, someone coming from academia, I can tell

2 you it is absolutely impossible to teach a student

3 absolutely everything they need to know about every

4 topic. One of the most important things that you can

5 equip students with is the knowledge of where to look

6 their questions up and how to research them, and where

7 to go for guidance and verification and additional

8 information.

9 In a full-time position, I teach seven credit

10 hours of pharmacology to vet students at one of the

11 off-shore vet schools in the Caribbean, St.

12 Matthew's University School of Veterinary Medicine

13 located on Grand Cayman Island. So, I am a pharmacist

14 who is actively educating veterinary students on a daily

15 basis in vet pharmacology.

16 I can also bring the perspective of someone who

17 has 15 years of experience in regulatory affairs and

18 regulatory compliance for several large veterinary drug

19 distributors. So, I have actively participated in

20 acquiring Vet-VIPPS accreditation for some pharmacies,

21 as well as VAWD accreditation, Verified Accredited

22 Wholesale Distributors, which is also a program offered

23 through NABP.

24 I can also offer the perspective of the

25 pharmacist. I have for going on eight, nine years
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1 now on a weekly basis, I provide consulting services to

2 Midwest Vet Specialty Referral Hospital in Omaha,

3 Nebraska, as well as the Nebraska Humane Society. I

4 help them with their compounding therapy needs,

5 obtaining drug vendor sources, client education and

6 compounding on a weekly basis, as well as all of their

7 controlled substance recordkeeping.

8 If you will allow me, I am running short on

9 time, so I will simply close by saying, I have devoted 

10 my career to academia, pharmacy academia, veterinary

11 academia, it is close to my heart. I believe there 

12 are opportunities out there to educate pharmacists

13 to fill some of the prescriptions that we have been

14 discussing today.

15 I hope I have the opportunity to further

16 differentiate some of the pharmacists who have training

17 versus those who don't, because I think that's an

18 important concept to discuss, and where the current

19 educational efforts are focused. I am absolutely a

20 firm supporter of collaborative working relationships

21 between pharmacists and veterinarians for the betterment

22 of animal health.

23 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Dr. Blythe.

24 Next we'll hear from Deborah Press. She is the

25 regulatory affairs manager in the Government Relations
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1 Office of the American Society for the Prevention of

2 Cruelty to Animals.

3 MS. PRESS: Thank you for the opportunity to

4 participate and for organizing this panel.

5 I'm here to speak on behalf of pet owners, and

6 really on behalf of our nation's pets and our shelter

7 animals. The ASPCA supports the concept of prescription

8 portability, because it will make pet care more

9 affordable. More choice encourages competitive pricing,

10 and competitive pricing makes it more affordable to be a

11 pet owner.

12 Our support for prescription portability and for

13 the Fairness to Pet Owners Act comes down to two basic

14 points, both related to the affordability of pet care.

15 The first point is that making vet care more affordable

16 is good for animal health. It means that more animals

17 who need medical care will get it, and more animals can

18 avoid medical intervention by access to affordable

19 preventative treatments.

20 The second point is that making pet care more

21 affordable encourages pet ownership, and that means

22 getting more animals out of shelters. Making quality

23 pet care more affordable is really the broad goal here,

24 and giving the pet owners the choice to take advantage of

25 less expensive sources of medicine is a small but
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1 logical step toward that goal.

2 A little bit of background about the ASPCA. 

3 Animal health is a cornerstone of our mission. The

4 Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital was founded in New York

5 City in 1912. We serve 20,000 patients a year. We have

6 22 vets on staff, and we provide general and specialized

7 veterinary services to pets. Our hospital also treats

8 our shelter animals. We run a large adoption center in

9 New York City. We have 300 animals at any given time,

10 and last year we adopted between 3,500 and 4,000 animals

11 out to the public. Our hospital also treats victims of 

12 animal cruelty. The ASPCA has a humane law enforcement

13 division that investigates thousands of animal

14 cruelty cases every year. We treat those victims at 

15 our hospital as well. At our hospital, we do release 

16 prescriptions when it would benefit the client and 

17 patient. Vets at Bergh provide either written 

18 prescriptions or they will call prescriptions in to 

19 retail pharmacies. Our vets will affirmatively suggest 

20 the clients fill prescriptions elsewhere if they know 

21 that doing so will be significantly less expensive. 

22 I'm going to go back to those two main points that I

23 mentioned to elaborate a little. 

24 The first point was that affordable vet care is 

25 good for animal health because it means wider access to 
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1 health services. Shelter-related euthanasia is the number 

2 one preventable cause of death of dogs and cats in the 

3 United States, and the highest euthanasia rates are 

4 associated with the neighborhoods of highest poverty. 

5 Studies have shown that cat mortality rates in shelters 

6 were three-and-a half-times higher in poor neighborhoods 

7 than in wealthy ones. So, one's ability to afford pet 

8 care really does impact health outcomes. We also know 

9 that affordable access to preventative meds impacts animal

10 health in the poorest communities. In some poor areas of

11 the South, the majority of dogs entering shelters test

12 positive for heartworm, and it's a disease that is 

13 difficult and expensive to treat, but easy to prevent. 

14 What all this together tells us is that the most at-risk

15 animals belong to the most at-risk people, and for the 

16 sake of the health and welfare of these pets, it's 

17 important to take steps that make their care more

18 affordable. We think that prescription portability is 

19 one way to do that.

20 The second point is that making pet care more

21 affordable encourages pet ownership. We want pet care

22 to be more affordable, to encourage adoption and get pets

23 out of shelters. Costs are a real issue. Vet care

24 costs and general care costs are cited as prohibitive

25 factors to pet ownership. Survey data shows that vet
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1 care costs are the number one reason people who

2 previously owned dogs currently don't have them. 

3 30 percent of previous dog owners, and 25 percent of

4 previous cat owners, cited vet care cost as the reason

5 they don't currently have pets. Budgets are tight today 

6 and pet ownership is down for the first time in 20 years. 

7 So, if we can take steps to keep pet care costs down, 

8 we'll encourage pet ownership and hopefully that will 

9 occur through adoption so we can get more animals out of

10 shelters. Prescription release will be a helpful step 

11 towards keeping costs down.

12 To sum up, the ASPCA does support the Fairness

13 to Pet Owners Act and we support prescription

14 portability. For pets requiring ongoing medication for

15 chronic conditions, the cost savings could be

16 significant. Costs are also significant for pet owners

17 with limited financial resources. These are the pets

18 and pet owners for whom prescription portability is

19 especially important.

20 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Ms. Press.

21 Finally, we will hear once again from Michael

22 Hinckle, he is a partner at K&L Gates where his practice

23 focuses on FDA regulatory matters.

24 MR. HINCKLE: Thank you, Tara, and thanks to the

25 FTC again, and it's me again. I'm back up on my stump
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1 on the generic drug issue again.

2 Let me just say, starting out, that we talked

3 earlier in the last panel about how distribution issues

4 affect the ability of real substitutable generics to get 

5 in the market and provide that competition and low priced,

6 affordable products that we see on the human side. But 

7 I will say that the lack of prescription portability is 

8 probably the primary reason why consumers are currently 

9 denied access to affordable generic drugs.

10 When I say generic drugs in this context, I'm

11 talking about substitutable generics. We see branded

12 generics that are sold as a generic that's approved

13 through the abbreviated new animal drug process, so it

14 is a generic drug in the FDA sense, but they're sold

15 with a brand name.

16 So, when we think about what makes a generic

17 drug affordable to consumers, it's really two things.

18 It's one, you don't have to repeat all the R&D work.

19 There's still an expense to doing the bio studies that's

20 necessary to get a generic approved, generic animal

21 drug, but you don't have to repeat all that R&D work,

22 because you get to piggy-back off the pioneer drug.

23 But there's also the cost of branding and

24 marketing a product -- selling the product out to

25 veterinarians, paying through the distributors to have
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1 their reps sell the product, all those marketing costs.

2 You don't pay those on human generic drugs, because of

3 generic drug substitutability. That is, on the human

4 side, when the physician writes for the drug, he or she

5 writes for the brand drug, it goes to the pharmacy, and 

6 the pharmacist then dispenses the generic if he has

7 the generic available. In many states, that's required by

8 law to make that substitution if Medicaid is paying for it. 

9 If state Medicaid is paying for it, it's required to make

10 the change. You say, well, why is that the case? Well,

11 if the government or insurance companies are paying for

12 drugs, they're going to demand that they pay for the

13 low-cost generic. We don't have that market pressure on

14 the animal drug side, so we don't see these animal drug

15 generic substitutable products available at the

16 pharmacy.

17 But for all this to work, for all this to work

18 at the animal drug side and provide these kind of

19 savings, there has to be a prescription. If that client

20 walks out of the vet's office and has been dispensed a

21 drug instead of the prescription, this whole generic

22 drug substitutability process and the savings that can

23 flow from that just aren't going to happen.

24 Now, there are some challenges besides the

25 prescription issue, that's for sure. The state laws
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1 present some issues with regards to substitution. FDA

2 presents some issues. They published the approval of

3 generic drugs in a different book. The states haven't

4 caught up sometimes. The state pharmacy laws aren't

5 clear as to when you can substitute -- there's probably 15

6 states that aren't sure when a pharmacist can substitute

7 a generic animal drug.

8 But those are things that can be overcome, as I

9 think the distribution side can be, too, if there's a

10 demand. Right now, there is no demand for these

11 products at the retail pharmacy level because those

12 prescriptions aren't there.

13 Now, we talked about ethical veterinarians, and 

14 I expect everybody that's sitting here is an ethical

15 veterinarian, you're taking the time to be here. Most, 

16 if not all, ethical veterinarians do provide prescriptions 

17 when they're requested. I expect that's true even in 

18 states where it's not required by law, regulation, or board

19 policy. The problem really comes to this, that just as a

20 matter of historical business practice, they're just not

21 offered. The drug was just dispensed and given, and the

22 bill was given. There are incentives for veterinarians to

23 dispense more drugs, the pioneer drug companies provide

24 those incentives. But even that, I think it's more just

25 a sort of historical practice that people don't
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1 question.

2 I think Nate talked on that, they sort of white

3 coat the idea that people just don't question and they

4 pay for it and they don't realize that maybe the savings

5 that they receive on their generic drug, or actually the

6 government or their third party payer receives on their

7 human generic drugs, could be available to them if they

8 had a prescription and if there was a distribution

9 process that would allow the substitutable generics to

10 get into the retail pharmacies.

11 Let me just close by saying, on behalf of my

12 clients, that generic drug companies are not

13 anti-veterinarian, any more than human generic drug

14 companies are anti-physician. They're supplying a 

15 product that is able to be sold at a very affordable 

16 price, because they don't have to expend the resources 

17 on extensive R&D and marketing. At some point, pet 

18 owners should not be paying brand drug monopoly prices 

19 for a drug that's been off patent for ten years. At 

20 some point, there should be a generic that's available, 

21 and the only way that's going to happen is if we get

22 prescriptions from veterinarians that can then be 

23 dispensed at the retail pharmacy.

24 Thank you.

25 MS. KOSLOV: Thank you, Mr. Hinckle.
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1 Well, obviously we have a tremendous amount of

2 expertise on this panel and they have raised a wide

3 variety of issues. Chris and I are going to do our best

4 to unpack some of those a little bit and explicate them

5 some more.

6 So, the way we thought we would begin is framing

7 this by looking first at what we would call, as

8 antitrust lawyers, the demand side, and then looking at

9 the supply side. So, on the demand side, looking at

10 situations where pet owners are likely to seek portable

11 prescriptions, and then look from the supply side at how

12 veterinarians tend to respond when they get those

13 requests.

14 So, let's start with the idea of when pet owners

15 seek portable prescriptions. Are there instances where

16 clients are more or less likely to seek a written

17 prescription and also looking at how often that's

18 happening?

19 So, Dr. Hauser, do you want to start us off on

20 that?

21 DR. HAUSER: Sure, that would be great. Thank

22 you.

23 There are several times that prescriptions are

24 either requested or provided by the veterinarian, and

25 some of the times that that would be would be if the
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1 drug is not stocked in the hospital. And that may be due

2 to a low demand or perhaps due to human abuse potential.

3 It's sometimes a little bit better for our veterinary

4 hospitals not to keep those things readily in stock.

5 When there's a need for compounding, we've heard

6 a lot about compounding this morning. I think you need

7 to look at there are cost variations, especially with

8 chronic medications, and I would say that of the

9 prescriptions that are requested in my practice, it

10 tends to be mainly for the chronic anti-inflammatory

11 drugs and the heartworm medications.

12 I also think you have to take a look at the type

13 of the practice that you're in, the setting. I'm

14 limiting my comments today to small animal medicine,

15 because I'm a small animal practitioner. But in talking

16 to some friends that are mixed animal practitioners and

17 large animal practitioners, they'll tell you, this ship

18 has already sailed for them. Large animal lost that

19 prescribing, dispensing, or I should say the dispensing

20 aspect years and years ago when the drugs went into the

21 feed stores.

22 So, what you're looking at is this, is an issue

23 that's going to impact primarily small animal

24 veterinarians. I believe, I don't have proof, but I

25 believe it's going to impact veterinarians that are in
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1 more suburban and urban areas. I used to live very

2 rurally. My husband still thinks we live rurally, but I

3 don't quite think ten miles out from town is rural. And

4 quite frankly, if you live in a very rural area, it's

5 more convenient for you to get the drug from the vet

6 than to drive 25 or 30 miles, like my parents would have

7 to go, to a Walmart.

8 So, I think that the location also plays a role,

9 and I do think that the types of clinical settings play

10 a role. I spoke with a lot of stakeholders to make sure

11 that I was fairly representing as broad of a spectrum of

12 veterinarians as I could, and I wanted to keep my own

13 biases out of this. Certainly my experience will come

14 in, but I think it's their voices you need to hear.

15 I have a friend that owns an emergency and

16 specialty practice, he sees this as a very minimal

17 consequence for him for the number of prescriptions

18 will actually not be filled at his facility. When we

19 get into some of the other issues, it's going to have

20 impacts of huge magnitude on his operational efficiency.

21 But right now, he says, no, people need it, it's an

22 urgent situation. It's not a low-grade chronic pain

23 medication where the owner isn't even sure that they

24 fully believe you that their dog is in pain, it’s that their

25 dog is seizing and they need to take the medications home.
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1 So, those are some of my thoughts.

2 MS. KOSLOV: Did anyone else have anything to

3 add on those points? I don't know if Dr. Foster, did

4 you have anything else you wanted to add to that?

5 DR. FOSTER: No, but I agree pretty much with

6 what she said. I mean, it's the long-term therapeutics and

7 the preventatives where the pet owner is getting gouged.

8 That's where the prescriptions are going to come in.

9 Compare the prices, you'll see.

10 MS. PRESS: I'll briefly highlight the

11 convenience issue, but I want to highlight a

12 slightly different aspect, and that is just access. Most

13 neighborhoods have access to a pharmacy, not all

14 neighborhoods are served by veterinarians. I live in a

15 city and I don't have a car, so getting to the

16 veterinarian is always a little bit of a problem. If I 

17 need to refill my prescription every month, it's just a 

18 lot easier to do at a local pharmacy. So, access to

19 veterinarians is another issue that affects neighborhoods

20 differently.

21 MS. KOSLOV: Dr. Aspros?

22 DR. ASPROS: I was going to say that we really

23 have very little data, maybe no data to really answer

24 this question. It's really anecdotal, and some of these

25 things sort of make sense, but whether or not there's
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1 any truth in any of them is hard to say.

2 MS. KOSLOV: Do any of the panelists have any

3 sense of whether there are differences based on client

4 socioeconomic status in terms of whether they are more

5 or less likely to seek a portable prescription?

6 DR. HAUSER: Not in my practice. In my

7 practice, I certainly have clients that are very cost

8 sensitive, and you can bet those are always the ones

9 that I offer the prescriptions to. And I am surprised

10 that probably about 50 percent of them will look at me

11 and say, you know what, I would just rather get it from

12 you. I would just rather get it while I'm here, I want

13 to get him started on the medication.

14 So, I cannot see a lot of socioeconomic

15 variations, but I should also reference that by the fact

16 that I am in a very stable neighborhood from a

17 socioeconomic point of view.

18 MS. KOSLOV: Did anyone else have any

19 perspectives on that question?

20 MS. PRESS: I'll just say that I don't know if

21 we can link it to socioeconomic status, but some people

22 are savvier shoppers than others. Some people are more

23 assertive than others when it comes to speaking out and

24 being advocates for themselves. So, some people just

25 may be more comfortable asking questions of their
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1 veterinarian than others. We like making prescription

2 release automatic, because it just does away with that

3 information disparity, that disparity and comfort.

4 So, again, I can't say it's necessarily linked

5 to socioeconomic status, but there are certainly

6 differences across the board in people's comfort.

7 DR. FOSTER: Can I add something to that? Are

8 we supposed to put our cards up?

9 MS. KOSLOV: Ideally, yes. We're a smaller group

10 and Chris and I placed ourselves in the middle, so we 

11 could try and keep track of all of you.

12 DR. FOSTER: I think we're talking about the

13 comfort level of pet owners when they go ask a

14 veterinarian for a prescription. Sometimes that's

15 intimidating, and it's especially intimidating when they

16 say something like, well, you can do it, but we'll have

17 you sign this waiver. Has anybody here ever signed a

18 waiver when they went to their physician?

19 Dr. HAUSER: I have.

20 DR. FOSTER: Is it part of routine?

21 Dr. HAUSER: Um-hmm.

22 DR. FOSTER: How about when you transfer a

23 prescription from a pharmacy to another pharmacy? Does

24 that pharmacist say, well, you've got to sign that

25 waiver or I'm not going to transfer your prescription?
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1 My son is a physician, and has never had a client sign a

2 waiver, by the way.

3 I realize that the AVMA's position is it

4 should be up to the practicing veterinarian to

5 determine that, at least I shouldn't say it's the AVMA's

6 position, I saw that in the Texas association in their

7 letter they wrote to the FTC. What I'm trying to tell

8 you is it can be very intimidating for a consumer to

9 have to do that.

10 We have a file this deep of waivers and

11 complaints, and for routine medications I'm talking

12 about, not chemotherapeutics that are unapproved.

13 Waivers are common then. But there is this

14 intimidating factor, and it ties to the socioeconomic

15 factor because typically the more educated the consumer

16 the more likely they are to question it. If you're a

17 lawyer, or you're a nurse, you're educated, a doctor.

18 Like why do I have to sign this to get Amoxicillin for

19 my dog? Geez, I just filled my prescription for my

20 child and I didn't have to sign anything.

21 I think we've got to clean that up. I'm on the

22 side of the veterinary profession, but I'm also on the

23 side of the pet owner. We just have to clean it up and

24 act like physicians do and other professionals that are

25 involved in animal health care. When we charge an
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1 extra fee for a prescription, or we have you sign a

2 waiver and make statements like, well, maybe it's going

3 to be counterfeit. Well, yeah, that can be counterfeit.

4 There's lots of counterfeit products in human medicine,

5 too, but there's still Medco, CVS, and others that we 

6 don't throw the pharmacies out because there might be a

7 counterfeit.

8 And, you know, the most likely thing to 

9 cause counterfeit is restricted distribution, because 

10 if the real product's there, they're not going to make 

11 much money on counterfeit. We've just got to think 

12 logically as a profession.

13 Thank you.

14 MS. KOSLOV: So, are any of the panelists aware

15 of whether or would you characterize that there have been

16 any trends in the relative number of requests for

17 portable prescriptions over time?

18 DR. FOSTER: I can answer that. I've been

19 taking prescriptions since 1983. There's no question

20 that the veterinary profession today is more likely to

21 give out a prescription. I think the American

22 Veterinary Medical Association has done an excellent job

23 of talking to their constituents and educating them.

24 And again, it only makes sense, if you would get one for

25 yourself. Remember, you've already had the
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1 client-patient relationship, that's at the point where

2 the drug is prescribed. Now we just have to count the

3 pills and fill it.

4 Yes, pharmacists have some other roles, and in

5 our pharmacy, veterinarians serve some of those roles,

6 too, to speak with a client. But it's not like we're

7 this far apart. Guys, I served some time on the board

8 at Michigan State University. To the best of my

9 knowledge, of the 25 colleges that have pharmacies in 

10 their veterinary school, 24 of them have pharmacists in

11 charge, not veterinarians. It's a common thing. Just 

12 think about that. Michigan State is one of them.

13 MS. KOSLOV: So, I think with that answer, we

14 have transitioned to what I had called the supply side, 

15 I'm talking about how veterinarians respond when clients

16 seek a portable prescription. So, to paraphrase what I

17 think we heard from Adrian Hochstadt's introductory

18 presentation and what we just heard from Dr. Foster, and

19 some of the presentations this morning, it seems as though

20 what we're hearing is that most vets do supply prescriptions

21 upon request. I just wanted to see, would anyone on this

22 panel disagree with that statement or want to clarify

23 that statement?

24 DR. ASPROS: No, I would absolutely agree that

25 AVMA's Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics requires
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1 veterinarians to honor clients' requests. AVMA supports

2 client choice, and I think veterinarians have done a

3 very good job. If they had not done that, I don't think

4 Race Foster would be here, because he wouldn't have a

5 business to represent.

6 DR. FOSTER: I would be selling more live fish.

7 MS. KOSLOV: Looking at it from the vet

8 perspective, one of the other issues we wanted to

9 explore is are there situations where vets proactively

10 might offer prescriptions to their clients on their own

11 initiative as opposed to waiting for a client to request

12 a prescription?

13 Dr. Hauser, is that something that you do?

14 DR. HAUSER: I absolutely do. I would say that

15 95 percent of the medications that I dispense on a daily

16 basis are human generic drugs. So, if I'm aware of

17 significant cost savings, I will absolutely let that

18 client know that there is a cost saving, and do they

19 want to go pick that prescription up. And again, I

20 would say it's about a 50/50 split with my clients.

21 MS. KOSLOV: Dr. Aspros?

22 DR. ASPROS: Yeah, there are drugs that -- and

23 again, I'm speaking for myself, not for AVMA, as a 

24 practitioner -- there are drugs that we can't

25 easily stock, because there's just not enough demand for
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1 them, and yet there's a need for them on the part of our

2 patients. Those we assertively write prescriptions

3 for our patients.

4 MS. KOSLOV: Ms. Press, do you have any

5 perspectives from the ASPCA's animal hospital

6 perspective?

7 MS. PRESS: Yeah, I mean, our policy is very

8 similar to Dr. Hauser's. When we know that it will

9 result in significant cost savings, we will

10 affirmatively suggest that the prescription be filled

11 elsewhere, and when it will benefit the client and the

12 patient, that's what we do.

13 Certain medicines, we can't do this for. They're

14 not available at retail pharmacies. But yeah, when we

15 know it will help, when we know that there will be a

16 significant cost difference, we will suggest it.

17 MS. KOSLOV: So, go ahead.

18 DR. ASPROS: I also am the managing partner of

19 an emergency clinic and I would say that that's one

20 situation where we don't do that because of the time

21 frame. These are emergent conditions -- it's frequently

22 the middle of the night, on holidays, on weekends. It's

23 important that the patient begin treatment as soon as

24 possible. It's often not easy for the client, or even

25 possible for the client, to fill that prescription in a
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1 convenient or timely way.

2 MR. SMITH: Could I make one comment? I think

3 that one of the main issues is does the customer really

4 have the right to choose? The comments of the panelists,

5 who I think have an outstanding position of being fast

6 and immediate to release a prescription upon request, I

7 think Dr. Foster's sense of there's a pile of

8 veterinarians who don't behave that way. And the FTC

9 recognizing in the past that release might not occur

10 unless a federal requirement is there for a release of

11 the prescription, needs to be factored in. The voices

12 here I don't think represent all practices or the ways

13 veterinarians work.

14 I also want to just stress that point that if

15 I'm dependent on my vet to continue to take care of my

16 family member and I feel like I'm taking something away

17 from them when I ask for the prescription to go fill it

18 somewhere else, and the vet clearly has an economic

19 interest of wanting to sell that product to me and make

20 money, what happens the next time I come in to get my

21 routine service, like the real practice of medicine? Do

22 I feel like I've somehow degraded or compromised that

23 relationship? No customer wants that.

24 I think that what a customer wants is the real

25 right to choose. And as I mentioned in my opening
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1 remarks, every person knows that when I'm handed a piece

2 of paper from my human physician, that gives me the

3 chance to go where I want to fill it where I think is

4 the best for me, whether it be for convenience or

5 economics or whatever the case is. And I don't think

6 anyone will argue that the prices online are generally

7 much lower than in a veterinary clinic.

8 So, if I'm given a prescription every time, my

9 mind changes in the way that I think about how I can

10 access these medications, and I'm now more conscious of

11 the fact that I have different options of where I can go

12 to get a medication filled. I think that change in the

13 consumer mentality will cause a significant shift in

14 where products are being sold when consumers start to be

15 more aware of the market condition they live in.

16 One final point, I do acknowledge and I have

17 sympathy for the fact that if we leave it the way it is,

18 the veterinarian has a stronger influence in the way

19 that a treatment is administered and the way that

20 people get their medications. But it comes with an

21 expense, an expense that will limit the number of pet

22 owners who can seek out -- this is the ASPCA's point of

23 view -- who can seek out and get those medications in

24 the first place.

25 So, is the additional therapeutic value of
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1 having your vet so closely administer the release of

2 Heartgard worth the fact that the inefficiencies are keeping

3 the prices so high that far fewer consumers can avail

4 themselves to those treatments?

5 I think we'll discover in the next panel about

6 how that worked with contact lenses, that when prices

7 came down, more consumers started to use contact lenses

8 as prescribed and wouldn't wear them longer and created

9 kind of a better patient health and safety outcome. The

10 same thing will happen here. More dogs will get the

11 treatments they need when they become more affordable,

12 and the value of that oversight I think diminishes the

13 total gain or the total benefit of consumers.

14 MS. KOSLOV: So, we don't want to steal too much

15 thunder from the next panel, which will be discussing

16 the contact lens issue in more detail. I did want to

17 pick up, Nate, on one point that you raised and just

18 open this specific point up in case other panelists have

19 any thoughts on it.

20 So, what economic incentives or other incentives

21 might affect the perspectives that vets might have on

22 providing a written prescription? So, Nate raised the 

23 idea of the vet's economic interest. Are there any other

24 points anybody wants to raise on that topic?

25 DR. FOSTER: As I mentioned before, I think the
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1 veterinary profession has to get smarter. Guys, we have

2 a profession where drug companies dictate what we do.

3 We take kickbacks, we take incentives, we take free

4 trips, we get free drugs. Do you know what that really

5 means? Does every veterinarian prescribe the drug

6 that's right for your dog or where he makes the most

7 money?

8 Think about that question. Now, I don't think

9 most veterinarians do that. But you know they took that

10 away in human medicine by not letting the physicians

11 charge for the drugs, for the most part. The drug

12 companies are driving this with their incentives. Their

13 12/12/12 programs. What does that look like to the

14 consumer? I don't think it looks very good. I don't

15 think it passes the smell test.

16 Guys, I know 90 percent of the veterinarians

17 don't do that, but why do we have restricted

18 distribution and incentives, if it's not about money?

19 Why do we have it? Why don't we just let vets do the

20 therapeutics, do their treatments, sell the medications

21 when they need to, especially in the acute cases, that's

22 what they do, allow the portability, and any qualified

23 place can fill them?

24 As the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association said in 

25 their submission to the FTC, that would let normal market
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1 forces dictate. Why don't we just do that?

2 MS. KOSLOV: Dr. Hauser, I think you're anxious

3 to respond.

4 DR. HAUSER: Certainly I am. I have a lot of

5 responses, I am going to hope that more pertinent points

6 will come up a little bit later in the conversation. We

7 have about a half hour left.

8 I have a lot of responses back to what

9 Dr. Foster just said, but I'm going to limit them to the

10 question that was actually asked. What are our concerns

11 that would affect vet perspectives? As a veterinarian

12 that's practiced for 25 years, as a veterinarian that

13 has been I would say 99 percent responsible for

14 deciding, with input from my associates, what goes in my

15 pharmacy, those drugs are selected not based on buyback

16 programs or buy-in programs, and percentage discounts.

17 They're selected because they're the best medications

18 that I can offer my patients, period. So, that was 

19 actually very offensive to me, and you can tell.

20 So, to get back to the question at hand,

21 compliance is a huge issue. Safety, especially with

22 diverted drugs. You bet I have my clients sign a waiver

23 if they want to order online, and the reason that I do

24 is because I can't guarantee the safety of those drugs.

25 I love my patients. And I love my clients, and if I
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1 wouldn't give that drug to my pet, why in the world

2 would I have them give it to theirs? I'm happy to write

3 the prescription. They're never just handed a waiver

4 and said, hey, fill this out. It's explained to them.

5 I look at that waiver as informed client consent,

6 period.

7 I do like the fact that I feel it releases me

8 from some liability. Misfilling the scripts, yes, it's

9 happened and it's happened to me, as well as illegal

10 substitutions. Those tend to be more in the

11 brick-and-mortar pharmacies that that's occurred, as

12 opposed to the online.

13 I think the big issue here is that when that

14 client comes in to pick up a refill on medications,

15 every veterinarian here will tell you that their team

16 loves seeing those clients. They love that touch point,

17 and that's a very informal way to make sure that George

18 the Bulldog is still doing okay. Hey, Mrs. Smith, how's

19 he doing?

20 We have had so much fragmentation within our

21 industry, that this is one more way that we're going to

22 lose touch with our patients. I think inappropriate

23 drug requests are another reason that we have concerns.

24 If the blood work isn't accurate, if the drug isn't safe

25 and appropriate for the patient.
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1 MS. KOSLOV: I'm going to transition us to the

2 next topic, and I have a feeling you'll have an

3 opportunity to raise some other points here. As we were

4 preparing for this panel, we realized that the bottom

5 line question we're really trying to get at with this

6 panel is: how is this pet medications marketplace working

7 right now from the perspective of pet welfare and from

8 the perspective of consumer choice?

9 So, with the particular emphasis on the role

10 that the portability issues play in that, because

11 obviously this morning we talked a lot about the

12 distribution issues come into play. But the bottom line

13 question really is: is the market functioning well today?

14 I would open up that question to anyone here on

15 the panel who wants to try to get at that bottom line

16 question.

17 DR. ASPROS: I would submit that the market is

18 functioning quite well today. It's diverse, there's new

19 products coming on to the market all the time, consumers

20 have choices like never before. The Internet and

21 transparency and pricing has probably been a part of

22 that, but we believe, I believe it's a very, very

23 vigorous and well functioning marketplace. Maybe not

24 for quite everybody on the end of the table here, but I

25 believe for consumers and for our patients.
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1 MR. HINCKLE: Can I comment on that one?

2 MS. KOSLOV: Mr. Hinckle?

3 MR. HINCKLE: I think I probably disagree. 

4 It's not necessarily well functioning right now and

5 it's probably going to get worse if there's not

6 prescription portability and some true interchangeable

7 generics. Because as we see more and more, as the

8 companion animal market becomes more lucrative and new

9 drugs come out that are wonderful drugs to help with the

10 quality of life for our pets, but those drugs are going

11 to go off patent sooner or later. When those drugs go 

12 off patent, the question is going to be, are consumers 

13 going to continue to pay those patent monopoly prices or 

14 are they going to get generics?

15 One of the problems we see, I have here this

16 question, why don't you just sell generics through the

17 veterinary channels? That goes to some of the

18 distribution issues we talked about in the last panel.

19 But we also face the same issues that we faced with the

20 medical physicians 15, 20 years ago, where I still have

21 clients telling me that they hear from veterinarians

22 that are disparaging the quality of generic drugs, the

23 FDA approval process, whether these products really are

24 equivalent to their pioneer counterparts.

25 So, it's an educational issue that’s
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1 going to take time to get through, but without the

2 prescription portability, we're just not going to have

3 those interchangeable generics. And as more brand

4 products go off patent, people are going to continue to

5 pay the high prices.

6 MS. KOSLOV: So, just to refine the question a

7 little bit, we had talked a little bit about this

8 chicken and egg perspective on the question. Do we

9 have a situation where either the market is fine the way

10 it is? Do we have a situation where we need greater

11 prescription portability which might spur the

12 development of a more robust marketplace? Do we need the

13 market to expand first which would then drive consumers

14 to demand more prescription portability? What do we

15 think about that?

16 DR. FOSTER: The problem is not the

17 veterinarian. The problem is supply of product. Again,

18 it was brought up this morning that superficially it

19 seems all happy and hunky-dory because catalogers and

20 Internet sites have product. Guys, we're charging you

21 five to ten percent more than we have to because the

22 availability is not there. I submitted that to

23 Stephanie, in writing, showed her receipts of products,

24 we paid the mark-ups that are on there throughout the

25 various distribution things. The pet owner is suffering 
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1 the price game. They're not suffering because veterinarians 

2 are not issuing prescriptions.

3 And it looks like there's a supply out there,

4 but guys, they've tightened up. Pfizer has cut us off

5 after 25 years. There will be no supply of chewable

6 Rimadyl in the next few weeks. That's a fact, if it

7 doesn't loosen up. Which means the only place you can

8 buy it is at a veterinary clinic or one of the central

9 fills, because they can buy direct and I cannot, even

10 though I'm a veterinarian.

11 But remember, this isn't about me. We need a

12 supply of product. We do need veterinarians to have

13 portability, and I think they're working in that

14 direction. I think it's getting better. I think we've

15 thrown up some obstacles that are not logical. But I do

16 think there's a big issue facing the pet owners. They

17 are paying more today than they should be for things

18 like Heartgard preventatives, flea and tick

19 preventatives. That's a fact.

20 MS. KOSLOV: Nate, did you want to respond?

21 MR. SMITH: Real fast, if I ask the question is

22 the market working well today from the consumer's

23 perspective, I would look at the prices available and

24 say, Amazon.com is selling Frontline for $10 a dose, and

25 a vet clinic is selling it for $16. So, I walk into my
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1 vet and I say, hey, why are you $16 and they're $10?

2 And it's a bad example.

3 I should use Heartgard, because Heartgard is an

4 Rx drug. But if I see the price of Heartgard and I see

5 the price of Heartgard in a vet clinic and I say to my

6 vet, I would like the prescription because I would like

7 to go get Heartgard for much less money. Well, okay,

8 then you need to sign this waiver and this consent

9 because all hell is breaking loose out there, this could

10 be bad product, it could be degraded.

11 So, then there's no generics in the market. So,

12 from the consumer perspective, is the market working

13 efficiently when I see the price differences and I'm

14 told by my trusted vet that this is dangerous territory,

15 you've got to sign this consent if I'm going to release

16 a prescription. That doesn't sound like a well-tuned

17 market to me.

18 I think we've all talked about the diversion

19 issue, and have largely vilified it as if it's evidence

20 of it not working correctly. So, this idea that the

21 market is robust and competitive when distribution is

22 limited, that just makes no sense.

23 MS. KOSLOV: Dr. Aspros or Dr. Hauser, does

24 either of you have a perspective on whether

25 veterinarians are responding on price based on any
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1 additional competition in the marketplace?

2 DR. ASPROS: I think AVMA does not have data on

3 that. I don't think anybody collects data on that. I

4 can speak from my perspective as a companion animal

5 practitioner, and I would tell you that most of the

6 time, unlike what Nate Smith said, most of the time

7 we're actually cheaper. We're not in business to sell

8 drugs, we're in business to serve clients and our

9 patients, and a lot of the pharmaceuticals that we

10 carry, we carry because it's convenient for clients.

11 We know we need to put patients on medications

12 in order to keep them safe and living longer, and we are

13 aware of the fact that there are lots of other

14 opportunities for clients to obtain prescription

15 medications, and I think most of the time we are more

16 than competitive, because it's easy to check.

17 I mean, there is pretty much price transparency

18 these days. My clients are as smart as I am, I'm no

19 smarter, but I can go on Amazon, so I know what pricing

20 is, and should be, and so does anybody else who's

21 connected to the Internet. Pricing, by and large, is

22 competitive. If it's not competitive, then the clients

23 are going to ask for a prescription and we're not going

24 to sell the product because we can't do that or we're

25 going to write them a prescription.
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1 DR. FOSTER: I would encourage you to do your

2 own study on the pricing. Sorry to interrupt. Some are,

3 some aren’t.

4 MS. KOSLOV: So, we have two other topics that

5 we're going to try and address in the remaining 20

6 minutes of this program. I'm going to turn it over to

7 Chris to migrate over to those.

8 MR. GRENGS: This morning we heard the topic of

9 qualifications for pharmacists to fill animal

10 medications prescriptions, and this is a topic that's

11 also come up in some of the written comments that we

12 have received and I thought I would ask Professor Blythe

13 if she can give us a quick summary of the types of

14 education and training opportunities that are available

15 to pharmacists during their formal education, and after,

16 when they're practicing, and any other types of

17 supplementary information or training that they might

18 receive.

19 MS. BLYTHE: You bet, Chris.

20 I think in the context of today's discussion,

21 you can take pharmacists and all licensed pharmacists

22 within the continental United States and you can almost

23 divide those out into three different groups. The vast

24 majority, the large majority are pharmacists who do not

25 have any training in veterinary pharmacology or
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1 veterinary pharmacy and they typically do not feel

2 comfortable filling those types of prescriptions and

3 frequently they will self-identify as, boy, I don't know

4 on this, I'm not comfortable.

5 You then have kind of a second group of

6 pharmacists who have had access to elective courses

7 within the pharmacy curriculum. They could have been in

8 the form of didactic electives or clinical electives via

9 rotations. So, those types of pharmacists have had

10 opportunities via education while they're in the PharmD

11 program, after they exit the PharmD program, whether it

12 be continuing education courses or other courses that

13 are offered by veterinary organizations, or even more

14 commonly, pharmacy organizations.

15 So, there's a subset of pharmacists who have

16 sought additional training and education. They have an

17 interest in veterinary pharmacy and they are motivated

18 to self-educate, and typically will seek avenues to

19 shadow, consult a veterinarian, and they are typically

20 very proactive in developing positive working

21 relationships with veterinarians within their community.

22 Even a third subset is some highly specialized

23 pharmacists who have had a great deal of post-graduate

24 training. Perhaps they've had anywhere from five to ten

25 to 20 years of hands-on clinical experience in a
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1 veterinary teaching hospital, an online pharmacy, a

2 brick-and-mortar pharmacy that specializes in veterinary

3 pharmaceuticals only or in teaching academia. So,

4 that's an even smaller subset of pharmacists out there.

5 So, certainly groups two and three, I think with

6 education and training and on-the-job training, peer

7 training, can educate each other and they can get to the

8 point where they can safely and confidently field some

9 of your most common chronic and preventative medications

10 used in companion animals, and by that I say largely

11 cats and dogs, much as Dr. Hauser has referenced.

12 So, those are kind of the three, how they shake

13 out.

14 With regards to specific numbers, let me start

15 by saying there is no requirement that a pharmacy

16 student take any type of course in veterinary

17 pharmacy. If they are available, they are entirely

18 elective. So it could be a didactic course in a

19 face-to-face environment, it could be an online course,

20 or it could be a clinical course that they take typically 

21 in the fourth year of their pharmacy education and we call

22 it a clinical rotation or an advanced pharmacy practice

23 experience.

24 So, those are the types of educational offerings

25 that occur today within the doctor of pharmacy
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1 curriculum. Of those, of the schools that are currently

2 accredited by ACPE, and that is the Accreditation

3 Council of Pharmacy Education, there are 127 accredited

4 pharmacy schools in the United States, of those 102 have

5 full accreditation, 17 have partial accreditation, so

6 they are the newer schools, and then there are two that

7 have pre-accreditation status. But collectively, we

8 have 127 schools that are taking pharmacy students in

9 today in the United States.

10 Of those, to the best of my ability to

11 collect data and knowledge of my peers from being in

12 pharmacy academia for so long, roughly 20 to 25 percent

13 of those schools will have a faculty member on staff who

14 is offering a face-to-face didactic elective in

15 veterinary pharmacy and/or a clinical rotation in

16 veterinary pharmacy for those students.

17 If that is not an option, which is the case for

18 the majority of pharmacy schools in the United States,

19 there is always the option to take online courses in

20 veterinary pharmacy. They are available to everyone

21 within the continental United States, for interested

22 students as well as a continuing education course for

23 practicing pharmacists.

24 So, that's kind of how it shakes out with

25 regards to numbers, what is currently available, and so
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1 perhaps that will give some data for a framework to

2 reference here.

3 I can confidently say that the number of courses

4 in veterinary pharmacy within the schools, whether they

5 be didactic or clinical education experience, has been

6 on the increase in the past ten years. Without

7 question, more schools are recognizing the need to train

8 pharmacists in those types of medications, more schools

9 are embracing faculty to offer those specialty services

10 or have knowledge in that area or their area of

11 expertise. More pharmacy schools are actively working

12 with other stakeholders within the pharmacy profession

13 to somehow make educational opportunities available for

14 their students or for practicing pharmacists within

15 their state.

16 So, definitely I think the increase in

17 educational offerings is reflective of the increase in

18 prescriptions that are being outsourced to community

19 pharmacies, in your typical retail community settings,

20 by veterinarians for your chronic and preventative

21 medications in dogs and cats.

22 MR. GRENGS: Anybody else on the panel have any

23 follow-up thoughts about the training that pharmacists

24 receive?

25 DR. FOSTER: I would like to add something.
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1 First of all, I think ongoing continuing education is

2 absolutely essential. At our place, at Foster &

3 Smith, we use University of Wisconsin. They have some

4 continuing education classes. The pharmacist's letter

5 also has some that they have taken for CE. I am not

6 going to ever sit here and say that the pharmacists are

7 trained as well as the veterinarians right now, but

8 remember, they're not prescribing, they're dispensing.

9 And there's room for improvement.

10 I think what Elaine said, if pharmacists

11 want to participate in the field of veterinary medicine,

12 it should be mandatory that they have CE, I think, in

13 this field. Just my opinion.

14 MR. GRENGS: And to follow up on that point, are

15 there any other types of best practices that you feel

16 are important in running a pharmacy?

17 DR. FOSTER: I think that the AVMA already has

18 established some of that by their recommendation of a

19 VIPPS-certified pharmacy. And there's I believe 16

20 VIPPS, there might even be more today, certified

21 pharmacies. That's some assurance.

22 That's the best standard that we go by today.

23 Other than that, remember, we're governed by the Board

24 of Pharmacy. And in my case, our pharmacy is licensed

25 by the Board of Pharmacy. The veterinarians work under
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1 the Board of Veterinary Medicine. You don't just mess

2 up for the heck of it, you lose your license. I mean,

3 we do have severe guidelines and punishment if we don't

4 go by the letter of the law. Thank you.

5 MR. GRENGS: And with that, I thought we would

6 turn to some interesting policy questions, including

7 legislative approaches to prescription portability,

8 among them H.R. 1406. And just to follow up on Adrian

9 Hochstadt's introductory presentation, H.R. 1406 was a

10 bill that has been introduced in Congress, but the FTC,

11 to be clear, had no role in developing that legislation,

12 and FTC staff don't have any particular position on it,

13 and to my knowledge, none of our five commissioners have

14 any current positions on the bill either, but it has

15 obviously raised a number of interesting policy issues.

16 So, I will start off with a basic question, is

17 H.R. 1406 or other legislation needed? Is there a

18 problem, or is this a solution in search of a problem?

19 MS. KOSLOV: If I could just embellish that

20 question a little bit, only because in the interest of

21 time I want to make sure we get this point out as well.

22 So, to the extent that H.R. 1406 might impose some

23 burdens in the name of notice, if you have ideas for

24 alternative approaches or less burdensome approaches for

25 those of you who might oppose the legislation, in
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1 particular, you can maybe address those as well.

2 DR. ASPROS: Well, I will start out repeating

3 something that we said earlier today, this looks like a

4 solution looking for a problem, in search of a problem.

5 AVMA is unaware of any data, any data, that

6 suggests that there's a problem associated with

7 veterinarians providing written prescriptions that this

8 is a problem that requires a solution, a legislative

9 solution in Congress.

10 If there is any issue, there's certainly no

11 federal recourse required to resolve it. State boards

12 of pharmacy and state boards of veterinary medicine

13 certainly have the tools they need to identify and solve

14 this problem if they decide that there is one.

15 MS. KOSLOV: Ms. Press?

16 MS. PRESS: Yes. So, the ASPCA does support

17 this bill, and we think that there is a federal problem.

18 We think it's also a problem of consumer education. We

19 think both are issues here. Right now, there's no

20 uniform framework to guide consumer expectation, and the

21 benefit of a federal solution is that consumers know

22 what to expect every time that they go to the vet. 

23 They're going to walk out with a prescription in hand

24 and they can choose to fill that with a vet or fill that

25 elsewhere. So, there's going to be certainty.
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1 So, we do see benefits to a federal solution to

2 this issue.

3 MR. GRENGS: Mr. Hinckle?

4 MR. HINCKLE: Yeah. There definitely is a

5 problem that needs a solution, and again, coming back to

6 American consumers, when Congress passed the Generic

7 Drug Act for animal drugs, it had a reason to believe that

8 eventually they were going to get affordable generic

9 drugs. That's not happening, and I think it's in large

10 part because there's not enough demand because people

11 just don't ask for the prescriptions many times. For

12 whatever their reason may be.

13 That lack of demand means that there's not a

14 market for the generic drugs. We talked about prices

15 are competitive. Well, prices are too high. Prices

16 should be lower. Prices would be lower if we had a

17 robust, generic industry, and it would also be helpful

18 for everyone in the sense that a robust generic industry

19 drives the innovator companies to develop the new

20 generation of products instead of using marketing

21 techniques to continue to evergreen their existing

22 products.

23 So, I kind of keep tooting the horn here, but

24 that's what this industry is missing is a real robust,

25 substitutable generic business.
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1 MR. GRENGS: Nate Smith?

2 MR. SMITH: I think it depends on who you ask.

3 If you ask the consumer is there a need or a problem, I

4 think a consumer would quickly tell you that they

5 believe that this is something that would border on a

6 right, just like it is in a human situation. If

7 someone is going to prescribe me something, isn't it my

8 right to be able to take that prescription and go to

9 somewhere where we all can create a safe place to have

10 it filled? We talk a lot about what the manufacturer,

11 the pharmacy or the veterinarian thinks. As a consumer 

12 myself, I feel like I should have the right when a 

13 prescription is granted for my dog, why don't I have 

14 the right to the piece of paper? It seems reasonable.

15 MR. GRENGS: Dr. Foster?

16 DR. FOSTER: I think there's a problem, but I

17 don't believe it's the veterinarians. It's the drug

18 companies. We've just got to say it. When they

19 restrict distribution, that's the problem. When there's

20 no drugs to fill your prescription, that's the problem.

21 It doesn't mean we can't improve as a veterinary

22 profession or as a pharmacy profession. It doesn't mean

23 we don't have some bumps in the roads, but I've been in

24 it since I was a kid, and I've seen a lot of positive

25 changes in the profession. I think Dr. Aspros and the
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1 rest of the AVMA members have done a good job.

2 Do I agree with everything they do? No, I don't. But I 

3 think it's improving. I don't believe the problem is the

4 veterinarian. It's not going to be in the future, either. 

5 It's the drug companies. It's got to be dealt with.

6 It doesn't matter how many prescriptions we

7 issue where you walk out with or are sent to Foster &

8 Smith. They won't be filled. Or if they do, they will

9 be done at a higher price because we have to protect our

10 supply, for refills. You just can't -- the consumer is

11 losing in this. And it's real. But guys, it's not the

12 veterinarians.

13 MS. KOSLOV: So, I would like to make sure that

14 we do get a veterinarian perspective specifically on the

15 question of H.R. 1406, and from your perspective, the

16 burdens that it might impose and whether there are

17 better alternatives if, in fact, there is some value.

18 My question presumes that there may be some value in

19 educating consumers and giving them more notice that

20 they have options out in the marketplace. If you

21 disagree with that, by all means, go ahead.

22 DR. ASPROS: I would say that there are

23 significant unresolved issues with the specific

24 legislation 1406. One is, as we had mentioned earlier,

25 veterinarians are allowed to, under state law, to
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1 dispense for their own patients under a VCPR. That

2 doesn't make a veterinarian a pharmacist.

3 Veterinarians in at least every state that I

4 know of may not act as a pharmacist and fill

5 prescriptions for other pet owners for which they're not

6 the veterinarian who’s established a VCPR.

7 If, in fact, under 1406 we are writing

8 prescriptions for every potential dispensed product,

9 it's really unclear to me what we're supposed to do and

10 under whose authority are we filling those

11 prescriptions, even for our own patients for whom we've

12 just written the prescription to, and I'm not sure that

13 1406 makes that clear at all.

14 My license as a veterinarian is governed under

15 state law. Pharmacy is governed under state law. And

16 suddenly we have this overlay of Federal legislation

17 over both of those licensed professions, and it's not

18 clear how that's going to be managed. It's clearly not

19 a zero sum game in terms of the very small businesses

20 that veterinary practices represent. As I said earlier, 

21 the typical veterinarian practice has one veterinarian 

22 and six staff working at the practice. These are 

23 burdensome regulations that 1406 would apply.

24 MS. KOSLOV: If I could follow up on one point

25 that you raised, and Dr. Hauser, I know this is
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1 something you have thought of as well and this also

2 responds to one of the many questions that we received,

3 but I do want to pick up this one in particular. If 

4 there is greater prescription portability, how does 

5 this affect the financial viability of veterinarian

6 practices? Is this something that you've thought about 

7 and would we see a situation where perhaps the price of 

8 the medication goes down but the price of services goes 

9 up?

10 DR. HAUSER: So, before I answer that, I want to

11 further a little along what Dr. Aspros just said in

12 relation to what Dr. Pion also said this morning.

13 Veterinarians want an equal playing field. The point

14 that needs to be perfectly clear is, at least in

15 Colorado, I am happy to write those prescriptions for my

16 clients. When I have other clients bring in

17 prescriptions from other hospitals, I can't fill them.

18 So, it's not an equal playing field under 1406. Any 

19 retail pharmacy, any online pharmacy, and obviously, the 

20 VCPR veterinarian will be able to fill those 

21 prescriptions. So, I just wanted to clarify that.

22 As far as the economics, they're significant,

23 and make no mistake about it. I love listening to

24 Ms. Press say how lovely it's going to be in this ideal

25 world when pet prescriptions drop and the cost of
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1 veterinary care drops. If you own a small animal

2 business -- not small animal business, just a small

3 business -- and you look at losing 17 percent, which is

4 the number we heard today, and that by some accounts is

5 a conservative number, 17 percent of your total gross

6 revenue, how are you going to keep the doors open?

7 You're going to have to increase costs somewhere else.

8 The most likely place is going to be through

9 service-based increases.

10 I had a dialogue with a gentleman earlier this

11 morning. When I sold my practice in 2008, it cost me

12 $3.75 a minute turnkey cost. I think that was the last

13 time I calculated it. But $3.75 a minute. So, for every

14 minute that I was open, that's what it cost me, without

15 compensating my doctors. So, that was just the fixed

16 costs, not variable costs like pharmacy.

17 So, if I have a 30-minute office visit, the true

18 cost to have that client in the building is over $120,

19 and I charged, at that time, actually $55.

20 So, there's a sharing perspective that goes

21 along to keeping those doors open, and I would love to

22 be seeing a client every single minute that I am in that

23 hospital, but that does not work either. So, you talk

24 about the economics of it, you can't have it both ways.

25 I do not predict -- my personal opinion -- that you will 
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1 see veterinary prices go down. The veterinarians, we 

2 have the fragmentation in the industry, actually for the

3 first time in 20 years, a 2012 AVMA study just showed a

4 decrease in pet ownership. We know since 2003, we've

5 had decreasing patient visits. This is a really scary

6 time to own a business or to run a business.

7 MS. KOSLOV: Ms. Press?

8 MS. PRESS: So, I'm not a vet, so I can't really

9 speak to how vets decide to set their prices in their

10 practices. I can speak about responsible pet ownership,

11 and I think pet owners appreciate vets who provide good

12 value, and we tell the public that they should shop

13 around for caring, quality, affordable vet care and pet

14 meds. Part of being a responsible pet owner is being a

15 smart consumer, and I know that Dr. Hauser appreciates

16 that. I think that's something that vets understand and

17 appreciate.

18 We want affordable prices for pet meds and it

19 doesn't matter to us where those affordable meds come

20 from. If the vet can offer the lowest price on those

21 pet meds, that's great, that offers a lot of advantages.

22 We just want the competitive environment to be there so

23 that those prices are available.

24 MR. GRENGS: I would just ask one follow-up

25 question. To what extent is prescription portability a
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1 legal or policy issue that requires a particular formal

2 solution, if it does, or to what extent is this really a

3 consumer education and awareness issue about their

4 ability to get a prescription and take it elsewhere to

5 be filled outside of a veterinary clinic? Are there any

6 thoughts on the state of consumer awareness about their

7 ability to get a prescription?

8 Dr. Hauser?

9 DR. HAUSER: I do believe portability exists. I

10 write prescriptions not infrequently in my hospital. I

11 think that client education would help to maybe breach

12 part of this divide. Again, looking at the clients that

13 I serve, they're very well-educated. They're very

14 consumer savvy. And I would be very surprised if very

15 many of them think that you can't get your prescriptions

16 filled elsewhere. I mean, they do. They know that we

17 use a lot of the same medications.

18 DR. ASPROS: I would say that just one company,

19 1-800-PetMeds, has spent more than $200 million in the past

20 ten years letting the pet owners know that they can

21 ask for prescriptions and fill them online. I don't

22 think that this is something that consumers are unaware

23 of.

24 Again, I think this is a solution looking for a

25 problem. This is a very robust marketplace with I think
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1 pretty fine margins and veterinarians are doing the best

2 thing possible for their patients, and consumers I think

3 have many options that they're aware of.

4 MS. KOSLOV: So, in the interest of time, I

5 think we'll have to let that be the final word for now.

6 I do want to note that we've gotten a ton of great

7 questions from the audience, as well as from the Twitter

8 feed. Some of the questions I think got answered

9 implicitly or explicitly during the discussion.

10 As for some of the other questions, we will

11 definitely take note of those and staff will do our best

12 to follow up on those as we decide what our next steps

13 will be.

14 I would like to thank our panelists for an

15 extremely productive conversation, and I hope you'll all

16 stick around for the next panel where we'll try and

17 apply some of what we've been hearing about over the

18 course of the day and look at the contact lens

19 experience and see what, if any, lessons we can draw

20 from that.

21 Please join me in thanking our panelists.

22 (Applause.)

23 MS. KOSLOV: We will reconvene at 3:00.

24 (Whereupon, there was a recess in the

25 proceedings.)
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1 PANEL THREE

2 LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CONTACT LENS INDUSTRY

3 MR. GILMAN: Hi, I wonder if people could start

4 to make their way to their seats.

5 So, let's get started. A couple of

6 preliminaries. So, I would like to welcome you all back

7 to this, our third and final panel of the day. I hope

8 it's been an interesting and fruitful day for everyone

9 here. I would like to introduce our panelists to Erin

10 Flynn, who is sitting in front of me, for two reasons:

11 One is Erin is an honors paralegal here at the FTC, she

12 has been terrifically helpful to us in preparing for

13 this workshop, and it's sort of unsung work, and so I

14 would just like to say thank you.

15 (Applause.)

16 MR. GILMAN: For our panelists, I just want to

17 say that Erin will be the timekeeper and enforcer on

18 your brief presentations. She will hold up a little

19 sign warning you when you've got one minute to go, 30

20 seconds to go, and no time whatsoever, and I'll just ask

21 that you sort of look her way as you're going through

22 your presentations. No need to be mindful of her six

23 black belts in different martial arts.

24 So, here we go. This panel could have been

25 titled, “And now for something completely different.”
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1 We're not going to talk so much directly about animal

2 medicines. We're going to talk about the FTC's

3 experience with and learning about the contact lens

4 industry. The reason for that is that this isn't

5 something wholly different, although there are

6 differences and we want to keep them in mind and ask

7 when and to what extent they're important.

8 So, there are some salient similarities here.

9 This is part of the FTC's general interest in

10 e-commerce, and it's an area where we've got

11 considerable experience in optical goods and contact

12 lenses. There are some common issues. The common

13 prescriber/vendor model, some common competition and

14 consumer protection issues, questions have been raised

15 about restrictions on distribution or what might be seen

16 as private vertical restraints. Prescription release

17 and portability questions have been raised. Consumer

18 credence issues for established and new markets have

19 been raised. Quite a lot of flux in the market is also

20 true.

21 So, we want to explore the basic question, what

22 we've learned about our experience with the contact lens

23 industry and enforcing the FCLCA and the Contact Lens

24 Rule, and whether or to what extent that learning might

25 inform our thinking about issues in this new space.
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1 So, to sort of kick this off and to provide some

2 background, we're fortunate to have our colleague Sydney

3 Knight. Sydney is an attorney in the Division of

4 Advertising Practices here at the Federal Trade Commission,

5 that's in our Bureau of Consumer Protection,

6 which is actually charged with the enforcement of the

7 Contact Lens Rule, which is the FTC's implementation of

8 the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act. So, I would

9 like to introduce Sydney and give him an opportunity to

10 provide some framing remarks for our discussion.

11 MR. KNIGHT: Thank you very much, Dan.

12 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sydney

13 Knight, and as Dan said, I'm an attorney in the Federal

14 Trade Commission's Division of Advertising Practices

15 here in the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

16 Today, I would like to provide you with a brief

17 overview of the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act,

18 and the FTC's implementing regulation known as the

19 Contact Lens Rule.

20 Now, obviously this is mainly background to the

21 main focus of your discussions here today; however, we

22 believe that these measures set forth in this statute

23 could provide some guidance for your consideration. But

24 before I go any further, let me state our usual

25 disclaimer, that my comments today reflect my own views,
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1 they do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal

2 Trade Commission or any individual commissioner.

3 The Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act was

4 passed by Congress in 2003. Now, it turns out that

5 during the decade that preceded the enactment of that

6 statute, the use of contact lenses had seen a tremendous

7 growth throughout the United States. In fact, in 2003,

8 it was estimated that American consumers were spending

9 approximately $3.5 billion annually on

10 replacement contact lenses.

11 However, along with this phenomenal growth in

12 the industry, concerns were raised about the lack of

13 competition in the industry. Particularly in light of

14 the prevailing practice at that time where various state

15 laws permitted a prescriber to be the only entity that

16 could fill the prescription.

17 So, to address these concerns, Congress held a

18 series of hearings. Congress then determined that the

19 practice of contact lens prescriptions being filled only

20 by a prescriber resulted in an unnecessary limitation on

21 the consumer’s ability to shop for the best price for

22 their contact lenses. So it was that Congress passed 

23 the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act to increase

24 competition in the sale of contact lenses and to bring

25 substantial savings to America's consumers and contact 
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1 lens wearers.

2 So, let's take a look at the specifics of the

3 statute itself. At the very heart of the Fairness to

4 Contact Lens Consumers Act is the requirement that

5 prescribers must give their patients a copy of their

6 contact lens prescriptions at the end of the contact

7 lens fitting, even if the patient doesn't ask for it.

8 Now, in giving the consumer this right to a copy of

9 their prescription, Congress clearly understood that

10 this right would be meaningless unless the consumer

11 could also fill the prescription at the business of

12 their choice.

13 So, the statute states that once the consumer

14 receives a copy of their prescription, the consumer

15 could then take the prescription to any seller of

16 contact lenses, either in person, by mail, or by

17 facsimile to be filled. However, as we know, it is not

18 always possible for a patient to present a copy of the

19 prescription in person, by mail or by facsimile as

20 required. For example, Internet sites. So, in these

21 situations, the act also imposes a requirement that

22 prescribers provide verification of contact lens

23 prescriptions that were written by the prescriber.

24 Now, it should be noted that this requirement is

25 one that was filled with some element of controversy at
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1 the time, due obviously in part to the inherent

2 competitive tug of war between third party sellers and

3 doctors who also sold contact lenses. However, Congress

4 resolved these issues by setting up a system that allows

5 for the contact lens prescription to be verified in one

6 of three ways. The statute provides that the

7 prescription can be verified if the prescriber confirms

8 the accuracy of the prescription by direct communication

9 with the seller. In this instance, a seller seeking to

10 verify a prescription would simply contact the

11 prescriber, by phone, often times, and provide the

12 prescriber with certain information about the consumer

13 as well as the prescription that was provided by the

14 consumer. Now, once that prescription is verified by the

15 prescriber, the seller can go ahead and fill the

16 prescription. 

17 The second method for verification of

18 prescriptions is where the prescriber verifies the

19 prescription by correcting any inaccuracy in the

20 prescription. This would cover such things as

21 incorrect name spelling or incorrect address, things of

22 that sort.

23 The third method of verification occurs

24 when the prescriber fails to respond to the seller

25 within eight business hours after receiving the request
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1 for verification. In this instance, if the prescriber

2 does not respond, the statute says that the prescription

3 is deemed verified. Thus, this is clearly a passive

4 verification method whereby the prescriber simply cannot

5 ignore the request for verification and thereby

6 frustrate the wishes of the consumer.

7 Moreover, the act also provides a few other

8 provisions designed to ensure that prescribers do not

9 impose other requirements as a condition of providing or

10 verifying the contact lens prescription. For example, 

11 the act also mandates that prescribers may not require 

12 the purchase of contact lenses from the prescriber as a 

13 condition of release of verification of the prescription. 

14 So, obviously the prescriber cannot say, well, you've got 

15 to purchase additional lenses in order for me to verify 

16 the one that you would like to have filled by another

17 seller. Secondly, the prescriber may not require the

18 patient to pay additional fees as a condition of release

19 of verification of a prescription. And third,

20 prescribers may not require the patient to sign a waiver

21 or release in exchange for the release of verification

22 of the prescription.

23 Now, as far as the implementation and

24 enforcement of the act is concerned, Congress turned to

25 the FTC by mandating that the FTC exercise its authority
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1 under the Federal Trade Commission Act and that the FTC

2 also undertake enforcement responsibility for the rule.

3 Well, it turns out that the FTC did have some

4 previous involvement with other rules regarding eyewear.

5 In fact, in 1978, the FTC issued the Prescription

6 Release Rule, otherwise known as the Eyeglass Rule.

7 Under that rule, an optometrist or ophthalmologist must

8 provide the patient, at no extra cost, a copy of the

9 patient's eyeglass prescription upon completion of an eye

10 exam.

11 Now, prior to the rule, the FTC conducted a

12 number of comprehensive surveys of state licensing laws

13 and of private associations’ codes. Based upon these

14 surveys, it was found that more than 50 percent of

15 optometrists imposed some restriction on the patient's

16 ability to obtain a copy of their prescription.

17 So, with that background in mind, the FTC was

18 called upon, by Congress, to issue its own rules to

19 enforce the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act, and 

20 that the FTC did in 2004. Although the act as passed by

21 Congress did set forth a number of specifics, as we

22 discussed above, it was the FTC's Contact Lens Rule that

23 filled in a number of other specific requirements. For

24 example, the Contact Lens Rule sets forth the manner in

25 which the eight business hours required for verification 
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1 of a prescription would be calculated.

2 So, according to the Contact Lens Rule, a

3 business hour is defined as one hour between 9:00 a.m.

4 and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding

5 holidays. So, essentially, if a verification request is

6 received at 4:00 p.m., the clock stops running at 5:00

7 p.m., and then will continue running at 9:00 a.m. the

8 next business day. Therefore, it's not 24 hours, eight

9 hours whenever. It has to be within those business 

10 hours, 9:00 to 5:00, except the FTC also allowed a 

11 business hour to include a prescriber's regular business

12 hours on Saturdays, if the seller has actual knowledge 

13 that the prescriber has Saturday hours. So, if the

14 prescription comes in at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, and the

15 prescriber has Saturday hours, then those hours count

16 towards the eight hours.

17 Another important provision of the Contact Lens

18 Rule specifies that sellers of contact lenses maintain

19 certain types of records, including the seller's

20 verification requests. Such recordkeeping

21 provisions provide the FTC with an opportunity to

22 investigate whether there has been a rule violation by

23 the seller, and in some instances to seek civil

24 penalties for such violations.

25 Pursuant to the FTC's enforcement authority, 
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1 the FTC has investigated and brought a number of cases 

2 under the Contact Lens Rule. In fact, since the 

3 issuance of the Contact Lens Rule in 2004, the FTC 

4 has brought ten different enforcement actions against

5 various individuals and entities. Here's a list of

6 those cases, and they can all be found on the FTC's

7 website.

8 Now, I won't go into the details of every

9 individual case, but just to give you a sense, our 

10 settlement orders have generally provided injunctive 

11 relief which, for example, would prohibit the seller 

12 from selling contact lenses without obtaining a 

13 prescription from a consumer. It would also prohibit 

14 the seller from selling contact lenses without verifying 

15 the prescriptions first, by communicating directly with 

16 the prescriber. It would also prohibit the seller from 

17 failing to maintain records of prescriptions and 

18 verifications. As I said, in some instances, we have 

19 actually obtained civil penalties from some of these 

20 sellers.

21 Finally, I would like to point out to you some

22 additional resources about the Contact Lens Rule that

23 are available from the FTC. The FTC has some online

24 resources available, one publication known as The

25 Contact Lens Rule: A Guide for Prescribers and Sellers,
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1 and as you can see, it's available on the FTC's website.

2 We also have another very important brochure that

3 provides Qs and As for how do you comply with the

4 Contact Lens Rule.

5 Now, these are just some of the materials that

6 you can find on the FTC's website. You can also contact

7 individuals at the FTC. We have a number there that is

8 the Division of Advertising Practices number, and you

9 can call that number to get additional information if

10 you need to do so.

11 Thank you.

12 (Applause.)

13 MR. GILMAN: Thanks very much, Sydney.

14 My colleague, Joel Schrag, and I look forward to

15 discussion with this very fine panel that we've been

16 fortunate to assemble here. I commend to you their

17 biographies, which are on the workshop webpage. We'll

18 just go down in sequence as before, introducing people

19 by name and title.

20 First off, we are glad to have with us Joe

21 Zeidner, who is the chief legal officer and general

22 counsel and corporate secretary for 1-800-Contacts.

23 Joe?

24 MR. ZEIDNER: Thank you, Dan.

25 As you mentioned, my name is Joe Zeidner, I'm
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1 general counsel of 1-800-Contacts, our country's largest

2 direct seller of replacement contact lenses. I thank the

3 Commission for allowing me to participate in today's 

4 workshop on pet medications.

5 The marketplace for pet meds looks a lot like

6 the contact lens marketplace looked before the Federal

7 Government stepped in to promote competition and

8 consumer choice. I am here to talk about three things

9 that we learned from our experience.

10 First, when the government decides to require a

11 prescription for a good, they also have to give

12 consumers the freedom of choice and allow them to

13 benefit from competition on filling that prescription.

14 Second, by-request laws do not work. And by

15 request, which you heard about in the other panels, are

16 when a consumer has to ask for a copy of the

17 prescription instead of getting it automatically. These

18 are unenforceable, they're discriminatory, they put

19 consumers in the middle of a conflict of interest, and they

20 create an unfair playing field between doctors who

21 freely release prescriptions and those who don't. They

22 discourage choice, since doctors can ask for a fee or a

23 waiver.

24 Number three, giving consumers their

25 prescriptions and the right to choose where they fill
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1 them will save consumers money, assure them better

2 service, meet their needs for convenience, and promote

3 health. 

4 Twenty years ago, consumers had no right under

5 federal law to a copy of their own contact lens

6 prescription. Even if they could get a copy, they were

7 limited in their ability to shop around. There was

8 evidence that contact lens manufacturers and

9 optometrists were colluding to lock in consumers. Today,

10 contact lens consumers have a right to a copy of their 

11 contact lens prescription automatically, without having 

12 to ask, without having to pay and without having to sign 

13 a waiver. They can fill that prescription at the 

14 retailer of their choice. When that retailer is someone 

15 other than their prescriber, they have a right to have

16 that prescription verified.

17 How did we get here? There are a number of

18 touch points. First off, as Sydney talked about, there

19 was the Eyeglass Rule that gave eyeglass wearers a right

20 to their eyeglass prescription. Second, in 1996, attorneys

21 general from 32 states had a national class action of

22 consumers brought an action against the American

23 Optometric Association and the major contact lens

24 manufacturers for conspiring to impede competition from

25 contact lens sellers. Bob Hubbard, who is on this panel, 
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1 will speak a lot more about that.

2 What's important is in that settlement, the

3 parties eventually settled with the manufacturers,

4 agreeing to abandon their restrictive policies on

5 distribution, and the AOA agreed that it shall not make

6 claims that ocular health is impacted by the channel

7 from which consumers purchase their replacement lenses.

8 Also in 2002, the FTC staff testified in a

9 regulatory proceeding in Connecticut. The FTC suggested

10 that passive verification was the correct system to

11 settle the conflict of interest between an eye doctor

12 who also sells what he prescribes, and an outside

13 seller. The FTC also documented how the cost to a

14 consumer in time and travel in picking up their lenses

15 from a brick-and-mortar store could exceed the dollar

16 cost of the contact lenses themselves.

17 What has been the impact on consumers? They're

18 saving money, they're buying more lenses, they have more

19 choices, they go and have more exams, and they are

20 benefitting from technological advances.

21 I am hopeful that for the FTC's workshop today,

22 this is the beginning of a process, and in the end, all

23 Americans who own pets, and that's most of us, can have

24 the chance to benefit the same way that contact lens

25 consumers have.
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1 Thank you.

2 MR. GILMAN: Thanks, Joe.

3 Our next panelist is Dr. Clarke Newman, a fellow

4 in the American Academy of Optometry, and a long-time

5 member of the American Optometric Association.

6 DR. NEWMAN: Thank you for allowing me to attend

7 and to address the FTC workshop.

8 I am a doctor of optometry and I have been a

9 contact lens specialist in private practice in Dallas,

10 Texas for 27 years. I have been asked by the American

11 Optometric Association, or the AOA, to address the

12 optometric experience with the Fairness to Contact Lens

13 Consumers Act, and I'll call it the Lens Act for short.

14 I also cite the official position of the AOA is

15 contained in the letter to the FTC by Dr. Robert Jordan,

16 chair of the AOA Federal Relations Committee, and I

17 incorporate those comments here as I expand on some key

18 points. I have provided expanded written remarks, since

19 time is short.

20 Our experience with the Lens Act, I think, is

21 quite instructive for all pet medication stakeholders,

22 legislators and regulators as they consider the passage

23 and the promulgation of rules under the Fairness to Pet

24 Owners Act of 2011, which I'll refer to as the Pet Act.

25 The Lens Act was a very good thing for the
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1 consumer by creating a framework for prescription

2 acquisition that enabled the patient to shop for the

3 best deal on lens prices. The Lens Act was also a very

4 bad thing for the consumer because the process of

5 passive verification, in particular, created

6 significant opportunity for abuse by the suppliers and a

7 nearly impossible enforcement burden which, due to the

8 limited resources of those charged with enforcing the

9 act, often failed -- as witnessed by the fact that a 

10 Shell Station down on I-35 south of Dallas has a wider 

11 selection of tinted lenses than I do in my practice.

12 Without the full enforcement of the Lens Act,

13 lenses are frequently purchased without prescriptions or

14 with expired prescriptions. When a patient's ability to

15 purchase a medical device that is worn on the eye is not

16 well controlled, the public is harmed.

17 The claim has been made that optometrists and

18 now veterinarians are unique in that what we sell we

19 prescribe. That view is foundationally wrong. In the

20 fee-for-service health care paradigm, all doctors profit

21 from their recommendations that they make, whether

22 they're surgeons or dentists or whoever. That's a

23 failed assumption.

24 It has been suggested that health care claims

25 about contact lens distribution should be viewed
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1 skeptically unless one can provide substantive evidence

2 of health care issues related to sale of prescription

3 products by alternative sellers, and I certainly agree

4 with that.

5 We now have that evidence and it is compelling.

6 In a 2008 study, a large prospective population

7 surveillance study was published in one of the most

8 respected peer-reviewed ophthalmological journals by a

9 group of highly respected researchers in eye care, led

10 by Dr. Fiona Stapleton. Since the annualized incidents

11 of microbial keratitis is small, the rare disease

12 assumption can be applied and the odds ratios

13 approximate the relative risk, and therefore one sees a

14 fourfold increase in the risk of the most severe

15 complication, microbial keratitis, by those who purchase

16 their lenses on the Internet or through the mail order.

17 Let me state that again. The multivariate

18 isolated relative risk of developing the worst contact

19 lens complication is just about four times greater for

20 alternative distribution channels.

21 In an email exchange between Dr. Stapleton and

22 myself yesterday, she states that there has been an

23 increase in Internet and mail order purchases and we are

24 currently seeing about 18 percent of orderers obtaining

25 lenses in that way. These original conclusions are
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1 based on multivariate analysis controlled for wearer

2 demographics and lens wearer modality. We have found

3 these findings to be fairly robust.

4 Further, in 2010, Yvonne Wu, Nicole Carnt and

5 Dr. Stapleton published data that shows a significant

6 difference in the after care awareness of those who

7 purchase their lenses from alternative channels of

8 distribution. We find that compliance with contact lens

9 care recommendations is low, ranging from 59 percent

10 down to nine percent.

11 In 2008, Fogel and Zidile found that Internet

12 purchasers were more likely to engage in harmful eye

13 care practices and to trust non-evidence-based

14 information found on the Internet rather than seeking

15 out the best practices as recommended by their

16 prescriber. Only two-thirds of the sellers ask for

17 prescriptions. Three out of four ordered lenses even

18 though they knew their prescription was expired. Three

19 out of four Internet purchasers did not have annual eye

20 exams, while three out of four who purchased them from

21 their provider did have annual eye exams.

22 I really don't have a dog in the pet fight,

23 that's a bad pun, I know, but I think it's important not to

24 make the same mistakes when contemplating what to do with

25 the Pet Act. Since we are dealings with drugs that have
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1 significant potential harm, even when used correctly,

2 and since the end-consumers of these medications cannot

3 advocate for themselves, it would be far better to err

4 on the side of patient protection than consumer

5 protection. That is the lesson one should take from the

6 Lens Act experience.

7 Knowing what we know now about the increased

8 risk of alternative channels of distribution for

9 disposable contact lenses, more respect should be given

10 to preventing needless injury to the public while

11 crafting any law or regulation aimed at protecting

12 consumer rights.

13 Thank you very much.

14 MR. GILMAN: Thanks.

15 So, our next speaker is Bob Hubbard. Bob is

16 assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Bureau of

17 the New York State Attorney General's Office, a position

18 he has held since 1987.

19 MR. HUBBARD: Hi, good afternoon, pleased to be

20 here. I was pleased that Sydney finally said the

21 disclaimer that I thought always was here, I speak only

22 for myself and not for any state.

23 I had the opportunity to prepare a statement and

24 it goes into a lot more detail about the history of how

25 states dealt with contact lenses. I had the pleasure of
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1 being the chair of the Plaintiff States Steering

2 Committee in the contact lens litigation that consumed

3 about eight years of my life. So, this is somewhat like

4 going to a high school reunion for me, you know, these

5 themes coming back that I thought I had moved beyond.

6 But it is very interesting and I found this very

7 thought-provoking and I appreciate the invitation and

8 the opportunity.

9 Now, the Disposable Contact Lens Antirust

10 Litigation was an antitrust claim. I think that what

11 we're talking about here is a legislative fix that if it

12 were an antitrust violation, we wouldn't be talking

13 about this. We would be talking about whether there was

14 enough enforcement and stuff. But in contact lens, they

15 did a whole lot more than what you've heard about here.

16 The AOA and the practitioners had something we

17 call the supply restraint that go to the contact lens

18 manufacturers. They say: “We know how to write 

19 prescriptions, we know that we can limit the prescriptions 

20 so that only J&J lenses are sold. We can limit them to 

21 only Bausch & Lomb lenses if you'd like. So, because you 

22 know we have that power, we don't want you to sell to 

23 1-800 anymore.” And they reached an agreement. They 

24 were pretty blatant about those kind of things.

25 In addition to that, they had something that we
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1 labeled the demand restraint. The optometrists knew

2 that the power over prescriptions gave them a

3 competitive advantage. They knew that as soon as a

4 consumer had a prescription, there were things that that

5 consumer could do with that prescription. And so they

6 did things to prevent, as some of the documents talked

7 about, the prescription from walking out the door. So, 

8 they had training films about how to prevent the consumers 

9 from asking. They had these forms that if you signed it 

10 you thought that your firstborn was going to be committed 

11 for the rest of your life. There were all sorts of very

12 burdensome requirements and the disclaimers and other 

13 things that restricted the demand for using alternatives 

14 that we challenged in the disposable contact lens 

15 litigation. We went all the way to five weeks of trial. 

16 We settled. We got the kind of stuff that Joe mentioned, 

17 sort of in passing, and I go through in more detail in my

18 statement, more of that information.

19 But even after we had finished all of that, we

20 didn't think we were done, because one of the things

21 that happened was that the prescription gave a power to

22 the prescriber that you usually don't have in

23 competitive markets. They had the ability to restrict

24 the access to competitive alternatives. That didn't

25 necessarily happen through collusion, but it could
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1 happen individually within an individual optometrist or

2 an individual ophthalmologist.

3 So, we thought that it was important to make

4 sure that the prescriptions got released. We urged the

5 FTC in 1997, just after we had filed, in December of

6 '96, to extend the Eyeglass Rule to contact lenses. We

7 thought that contact lenses had become manufactured in

8 an easy, replicable way. No longer did you

9 individually fit the lens on the eye. They were a

10 replacement, you replaced them much more frequently than

11 otherwise. We argued that the rule ought to be extended

12 to contact lenses. We were happy that the FTC didn't

13 rescind the Eyeglass Rule, but they did not extend it to

14 contact lenses.

15 So, the effort went to legislation, and we wrote 

16 letters in support of separating the power of prescription 

17 from the power of selling. There were three AG letters in

18 support of that. There were also provisions that we 

19 supported that tried to prevent the restricted distribution

20 practices that were built on the power of prescription, 

21 where the manufacturers would limit to whom they would 

22 sell. I had the pleasure of testifying in support of 

23 that legislation that was passed.

24 I do have to add but one additional point. The

25 problem here was not with state law. State law allowed 
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1 that prescribing and dispensing were two separate

2 things. In the litigation, they argued that -- like

3 usual, they tried to blame the victim -- it was the state

4 law problem. It wasn't the state law problem, and we

5 fought that. But we passed that legislation. That

6 legislation got passed, I'm happy it did. It separated

7 the prescription power from the sale of the prescribed

8 products, and I think that that was all quite useful. I

9 think that it promotes healthy results, and it brings

10 value to consumers.

11 MR. GILMAN: Thanks, Bob.

12 Our next speaker is Rob Atkinson. Rob is the

13 president of the Information Technology and Innovation

14 Foundation, a non-partisan research and educational

15 institute that deals with issues in technology policy in

16 electronic commerce.

17 Rob?

18 MR. ATKINSON: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be

19 here.

20 I've been writing and speaking about this issue

21 of intermediary resistance to e-commerce since 2000, and

22 it's been amazing to watch the proliferation of

23 industries and professions that fight back against

24 consumer choice. They all use exactly the same logic

25 and argumentation. This is car dealers, wine
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1 wholesalers, lawyers, realtors, undertakers,

2 optometrists, and now veterinarians.

3 My favorite of all time was when I debated the

4 head of the Texas Car Dealers Association at the

5 National Conference of State Legislators who told me if

6 you bought a car over the Internet from a producer, that

7 you would get ripped off, unlike when you buy it from a

8 car dealer.

9 They engage in this through three principal ways.

10 One is collusion with producers. Bob talked eloquently

11 about that. The second is limiting access to key resources. 

12 We've heard about that with prescriptions, and that's in

13 theory what the 2003 Contact Lens Rule was designed to

14 do. But I say designed because as late as 2007 in

15 Contact Lens Spectrum Magazine, a professional magazine

16 for optometrists who surveyed optometrists and found

17 that in 2007, "Despite this federal legislation, only

18 half of the respondents replied yes to every patient

19 when asked if they release contact lens prescriptions,

20 even though they're required by law," which makes you

21 wonder not only their ethics, but their intelligence for

22 why they would answer a question that is illegal to take

23 in a professional survey. So, clearly even when the law

24 passed, you had optometrists who would resist this. And 

25 the third is they passed an array or supported the passage
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1 of an array of laws, including state laws requiring

2 face-to-face transactions, limited sales, et cetera.

3 So, what can we learn from FCLCA? I think

4 several things. One is that we learned that

5 optometrists would oppose any threat to their business

6 model and do virtually anything and say anything to keep 

7 their business model intact. We can also learn that

8 ultimately optometrists benefitted from this law because

9 of the change in the examination rule. Third, we can

10 learn that really despite what you've heard, there's

11 very little evidence of adverse health impacts.

12 The study that was cited here earlier, the Fogel

13 and the Zidile study, which we have an article in there

14 rebutting, is really a study when you look at it, that

15 it's just chock full of methodological errors. It's not

16 a study that would pass a rigorous statistical journal

17 for peer review. I'm not going to go into detail on

18 that.

19 The other one that we heard about, the

20 Australian study that had multivariate analysis, which

21 if you look at that, that fourfold increase, what that

22 is a fourfold increase of has two problems. One is that

23 the increase is very, very small. So, it might be a

24 fourfold increase, but it's off of a base that is

25 incredibly minute. The biggest risk in that study is
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1 sleeping with your contact lenses on all night, that's

2 the giant risk. The teeny little risk is this other

3 one.

4 Secondly, I'll just mention this Australian

5 study, which the AOA representative cited, the study

6 says, "The risks associated with Internet mail order

7 purchase may be related to contact lens care attitudes

8 and behavior, not Internet sales." So, in other words,

9 they haven't controlled for that and they admit that in

10 the study.

11 Now, the other argument you will hear is that we

12 don't, and James may make this argument, that even with

13 the passage of this law, we haven't seen significant

14 consumer benefits, that essentially the market is the

15 same way it was, and that the contact lens providers

16 have not lowered their prices. James Cooper has written

17 a study on this, which he may talk about, but let me

18 just comment on the study.

19 One of the things that James did in his study,

20 he looked at 2004 as the base year, and 2007 as the

21 final year. The big problem with that is in 2004, the 

22 act was already in existence. So what he was trying to 

23 look at is did optometry prices, getting your lenses from

24 optometrists, did they actually go down relative to online 

25 over this period? But it was actually after the law was 
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1 passed, so you would expect a price impact right away, 

2 not later.

3 The second problem is that the base year, the

4 end year, 2007, which we haven't talked about, was still

5 right around the time that the CooperVision restrictions

6 were in place, and CooperVision was not under this AG

7 restraint. They were able to sell and basically sell

8 lenses to optometrists that were doctors only. So, they

9 would prescribe this lens, you simply couldn't buy it

10 anywhere else. Luckily, they've been stopped, they have

11 stopped doing that.

12 Just anecdotally, by the way, a sample of one,

13 if you go out to Montgomery Mall and you go to

14 LensCrafters, I took this picture last night, I'm sure

15 you can all see it, but basically what it says, and I'm

16 happy to give you a copy, basically it's a doctor there

17 providing a little price description, and it says his 

18 prices or her prices are lower than 1-800 and Walmart. 

19 So, actually what it says is 1-800 and Walmart prices, 

20 and then Dr. Solomon's prices. It appears to me that that

21 doctor is competing on the basis of price with Walmart and

22 1-800-Contacts and is trying to tell his or her customers,

23 yeah, I'm going to compete on price and you should buy 

24 here.

25 Now, let's just say hypothetically that that's
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1 what's going on. That, to me, is pro-consumer and

2 suggests that consumers have benefitted from the law, and

3 I would suggest that consumers would benefit from a pet

4 meds law as well.

5 Thank you.

6 MR. GILMAN: Thanks, Rob.

7 I would like to welcome back to the FTC James

8 Cooper, who depending on his perspective is either an

9 alumnus of or a refugee from the Office of Policy

10 Planning, where he has served both as deputy director

11 and as acting director. These days he's at George Mason

12 University Law School where he is director of research

13 and policy at the Law and Economics Center and a

14 lecturer in law.

15 James?

16 MR. COOPER: Thanks, Dan.

17 It's great to be back here. It does feel like

18 old times. I'm here, I think, I don't know, because

19 they couldn't find anyone else, but I did some work on

20 this Contact Lens Rule. It was one of the first things

21 I did here as an attorney advisor in the Office of

22 Policy Planning. I worked on the Contact Lens Rule and

23 the study that was mandated by Congress, and it's the

24 gift that keeps on giving, right? I'm back here. I've

25 been asked to I don't know how many panels I've been on
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1 because of this, really not very many, to be honest,

2 this is it.

3 In my very limited time, what I want to talk

4 about here is I have done some empirical work. Some of

5 it comes off of the Contact Lens Report, where we did

6 gather some data, and then on my own, after that, I

7 gathered some more data. So, one paper that I have right

8 now, it's

9 currently a working paper, it's under review at a

10 journal, we'll see what happens, I'll keep you posted if

11 you're interested, but it is to see if the prescription

12 release requirement, how that affected prices.

13 I'll go forward with the punchline is I don't

14 really find any evidence, but my takeaway from that

15 isn't that it was a bad idea or that consumers didn't

16 benefit. So, the methodology of the study is I did look

17 at prices, we collected for the contact lens study in

18 2004, that was about a month after the Contact Lens

19 Rule, the act passed, but it didn't go into effect until

20 the Contact Lens Rule. It's a weakness in the study and

21 it's front and center in the report. I devote about

22 three pages discussing it in the caveats of the data.

23 However, then we go back in 2007 and collect

24 data. So, the idea that if about a month after the

25 Contact Lens Rule went into effect requiring
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1 prescription release, you wouldn't see all the effects

2 right away, and so you go back three, three-and-a-half

3 years later, see how the market has changed. I won't go

4 into the pretty rigorous methodology, and what I find is

5 really no effect on price. On average, there isn't any

6 effect on price.

7 If there's anything that you can tease out of

8 the data, it's one, that when places like LensCrafters

9 and Pearl Vision, the optical chains, their prices

10 actually rose over the time period, vis-a-vis online,

11 the gap. So, what I'm measuring is the gap between

12 online and offline. If prescription portability worked

13 and the idea was that they would compete more vigorously,

14 you would expect to see the price gaps narrow. The gap

15 between warehouse clubs and online maybe shrunk a

16 little.

17 So, but overall, you don't see much of a change.

18 I'm quickly running out of time. So, I will

19 skip through to another little bit of empirical work I

20 did in 2007 looking at the limited distribution

21 strategies, and as alluded to already through Coopervision,

22 lenses that have limited distribution, I did some

23 empirical work there. I didn't really find that the

24 margins or prices of those limited distributed lenses

25 were statistically distinguishable from other lenses
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1 like Acuvue, et cetera, that were not limitedly

2 distributed.

3 So, I hope we talk more about this in the panel,

4 is prescription release, why do we not see a market

5 effect? Maybe doctors aren't obeying the rule, that's

6 one possibility. The other is something called ordered

7 search, where search is costly and consumers are already

8 there, and they think, okay, I'm going to buy from the

9 first price draw I have, and doctors take advantage of

10 that. They know it's costly to go and find something,

11 so they charge a premium for that.

12 Limited distribution, I would just make the

13 point here that there is a presumption in the antitrust

14 laws that vertical restraints, both price and non-price,

15 are efficient. The burden is on the moving party to

16 show why they're inefficient. So, I think that's a

17 pretty high burden. We should make sure to distinguish

18 between horizontal collusion, which is going on in Bob's

19 case, and unilateral vertical restraints, I think that's

20 important when we think about policy.

21 Thanks a lot.

22 MR. GILMAN: Thanks, James.

23 Next we have Dr. Link Welborn of the American

24 Veterinary Medical Association.

25 DR. WELBORN: Thank you. I would also like to
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1 thank the Federal Trade Commission for this opportunity.

2 I have been asked to speak to the similarities

3 and differences between the contact lens and pet

4 medications industries from my perspective as a

5 practicing veterinarian. Both eye care professionals

6 and veterinarians prescribe and dispense products for long7 term use in their patients.

8 These products, contact lenses for people, and

9 parasite control medications for pets, are typically

10 sold in six-month supplies. However, these medications

11 represent a minority of those prescribed by

12 veterinarians. Most medications are acute short-term

13 care medications and are much more varied in form,

14 function and efficacy than contact lenses.

15 In addition, the potential for and severity of

16 side effects associated with pet medications is much

17 greater than with contact lenses. For example, the most

18 commonly prescribed oral flea control medication and the

19 most commonly prescribed treatment for mange will often

20 cause a life-threatening side effect if administered to

21 a dog within days of each other.

22 Further, some medications can be life-saving in

23 one species and life-threatening for another, or even

24 another breed within the same species.

25 While both large and small animal practice
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1 entities exist among eye care professionals and small

2 animal veterinarians, the vast majority of pet practices

3 are very small businesses and tend to be less profitable

4 and less sophisticated from a business perspective than

5 eye care professionals. Accordingly, veterinary practices

6 are less able to absorb the expense and management effort

7 associated with any additional regulatory burden without

8 passing the additional costs on to consumers.

9 The veterinary profession is currently

10 experiencing numerous economic challenges. While these

11 challenges intensify during the recession, they

12 certainly predate the downturn in the U.S. economy and

13 will persist even as the overall economy improves. 

14 Included among these are the progressive margin compression

15 on veterinary medications that spans more than a decade. 

16 While this has reduced the profitability of veterinary

17 practices, it has been beneficial to consumers in that it

18 has reduced the cost of pet medications and it is an 

19 example of successful function of the free market.

20 Today, the mark-up for the most commonly

21 prescribed parasite control medication in my practice is

22 about half of what it was ten years ago, even though

23 there is still no generic competition for that

24 medication.

25 As I understand it, the price competition among
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1 sellers of contact lenses has intensified significantly

2 since the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act was

3 passed by Congress in 2003. Even though it is

4 impossible to determine how much has been the result of

5 this law and how much occurred independent of it, the

6 competitive landscape has obviously changed greatly

7 within many industries, including pet medications, over

8 the last nine years, because of increased consumer

9 utilization of online merchants and large discount

10 retailers.

11 Consumer awareness of a large number of online

12 and discount retail sources of pet medications has

13 increased greatly since 2003, as a result of millions of

14 dollars of advertising. As a result, virtually every

15 pet owner that I see in my practice is aware of these

16 options. Just as Ms. Press indicated relative to the

17 ASPCA veterinarians and tens of thousands of other

18 veterinarians across the country, the other

19 veterinarians in my practice and I write prescriptions

20 for pet medications daily. Some at the request of

21 clients and some at the suggestion of the veterinarian.

22 Clients commonly request prescriptions for the

23 parasite control medications with the expectation that

24 the cost of these medications will be less from another

25 source. Once again, free market forces have been very
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1 effective in the pricing of these medications within

2 most veterinary practices as set based on the prices

3 available through online outlets.

4 In our practice, clients are often surprised to

5 find that the pricing in our hospital is slightly less

6 than that available from online sources. The reality is

7 that most practices set prices at, slightly above or

8 slightly below the prices of online outlets with many

9 practices matching the lowest price available online. This

10 price parity exists because practices want

11 to serve the needs of their clients and patients, but

12 also because we want our clients to have the impression

13 that we are fairly priced throughout the products and

14 services that we offer.

15 Unlike eye care professionals, third-party

16 payment for veterinary care is rarely available.

17 Further, pet owners rarely budget for this care. For

18 these reasons, virtually every veterinary visit includes

19 two conversations: One about care, and another about

20 cost.

21 Since many local pharmacies advertise the

22 availability of low or no-cost medications for both pets

23 and people, it is common for veterinarians to suggest

24 that they write a prescription for a medication in order

25 to help clients afford recommended diagnostics or
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1 treatment procedures.

2 If I have a patient with a fever of undetermined

3 origin, I would rather write a prescription for a free

4 antibiotic from a local grocery store or pharmacy and

5 utilize the pet owner's funds to perform blood tests to

6 learn more about the nature and severity of the

7 underlying disease than dispense an antibiotic without

8 being able to perform the tests.

9 The bottom line is that veterinarians help

10 pet-owning consumers spend their money wisely every day.

11 Thank you.

12 MR. GILMAN: Thanks, Dr. Welborn.

13 Finally, and by no means least, we are glad to

14 have Dr. Kent McClure, who is general counsel for

15 the Animal Health Institute. The AHI represents

16 research-based manufacturers of animal health products.

17 MR. McCLURE: Thank you.

18 I see my role here today, as we talked about

19 leading up to this panel, as helping to identify some of

20 the differences between the animal health products

21 industry and the contact lens industry. A major

22 difference is the scope and complexity. Unlike products

23 intended for human use, animal health products are

24 labeled for use across a wide variety of species and

25 indications.
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1 Importantly, veterinarians may appropriately use

2 them in a manner that differs from their approved

3 labeling. They are regulated by three different Federal

4 agencies, drugs and devices by FDA, biological products

5 by USDA, and pesticides by the EPA. The intended species

6 for these products may range from dogs and cats, livestocks

7 and horses, to an extremely diverse range of minor species. 

8 There are many dosage forms, including oral, it

9 could be liquid or solid, injectable, topical, pet food,

10 aerosol, intranasal, or they may utilize sophisticated

11 and specialized delivery devices. The intended uses for

12 these products impact every conceivable animal system. 

13 Contact lenses for human use represent a single

14 subcategory of medical devices that are used topically on a

15 single organ system primarily for vision correction. The

16 distinction among soft contact lenses primarily involves

17 differing plastic polymers and shape. It's our

18 understanding that the Contact Lens Rule generally relates

19 to the ability of a consumer to order standardized contact

20 lenses that are dispensed for use in accordance with their

21 labeling by a dispenser who must only be familiar with one

22 species, and when it's not an eye care professional, they

23 are essentially just matching the correct box to the correct

24 person.

25 The scope and practice of companion animal
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1 medicine, however, is very large, includes the

2 diagnosis, prevention, control and treatment of all

3 animal diseases and conditions. In the course of such

4 practice, most companion animal veterinary hospitals are

5 analogous to human hospitals, providing inpatient,

6 outpatient and emergency care, surgical, medical imaging

7 and clinical laboratory services. In this context, a very

8 wide variety of animal health products will be utilized for

9 many different purposes.

10 On the other hand, according to the contact lens

11 study, the interaction of eye care professionals with

12 their patients relative to the fitting of contact

13 lenses, is on an outpatient basis, and is typically

14 limited to an examination of the eye to determine eye

15 health, lens power and contact lens curvature and

16 diameter.

17 With respect to pharmacists, they are an

18 integral part of the delivery of human health care and

19 their training is primarily oriented to human health.

20 However, as we heard on several panels earlier today,

21 pharmacists are not trained in the physiology and

22 pharmacology of companion animals in a manner similar to

23 veterinarians, and as such their participation in the

24 delivery of veterinary health care has been limited.

25 In our industry, the veterinarian plays a
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1 critical role, matching the correct product with the

2 correct patient is important for many products and

3 extends beyond just prescription products to encompass

4 other types of animal health products, particularly as

5 veterinarians frequently and appropriately use them in a

6 manner that differs from their approved labeling, such

7 as treating a different species, using a different

8 dosage regimen or a different indication for use.

9 In this environment, the veterinarian is the

10 primary source of information about animal health

11 products for pet owners. Veterinarians have typically

12 counseled clients regarding the use of products, and

13 many manufacturers have invested tremendous resources to

14 educate veterinarians about their products.

15 Veterinarians also have ongoing close

16 interaction with their clients and have been the primary

17 monitors of patient use of medication, including

18 evaluation for interactions in adverse events. These

19 roles for the veterinarian are understandable due to

20 their unique training.

21 As was mentioned earlier, products in one

22 species may not be safe for another, combinations in one

23 species may not be safe in another. Involvement of the

24 veterinarian should not be discounted as many in our

25 industry believe that the safety and efficacy profiles
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1 for many of their products are positively impacted by

2 the comprehensive role of the veterinarian.

3 MR. GILMAN: Well, thank you.

4 So, we are going to hope to kick off a

5 discussion here. I'm going to let my colleague, Joel

6 Schrag, start things off.

7 MR. SCHRAG: Thank you very much, Dan, and I

8 think these opening presentations have put a lot of

9 issues out on the table that hopefully we will be able

10 to address.

11 During the panel discussion, if any panelist in

12 particular wants to respond to something that I raise,

13 please raise your table tent, as Dr. Newman has already

14 done, perhaps he anticipated my first question.

15 Dr. Newman, was there something specific from

16 the opening presentations that you wanted to respond to?

17 DR. NEWMAN: Yes, there was.

18 MR. SCHRAG: Okay, why don't we take a minute,

19 then, for that.

20 DR. NEWMAN: A couple of things. It was

21 proffered to you all that this information that were in

22 the three studies that I presented was somehow suspect

23 and that's simply not the case. These are all published

24 in peer-reviewed journals that went through vigorous

25 vetting, and again, these numbers do say what they say.
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1 You said that there was an increase in eye exams

2 and that's not true. Among those that purchased their

3 lenses, three out of four don't have annual exams,

4 whereas three out of four who purchased lenses from the

5 provider do have annual exams. Okay.

6 MR. SCHRAG: If the moderator can break in, it

7 sounds as though we maybe should start under the broad

8 overarching question that people will have a reaction

9 to, which is have consumers benefitted from the FCLCA,

10 Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act, the associated

11 Contact Lens Rule and the distribution changes that were

12 brought about by the state attorneys general lawsuit.

13 So, why don't we just open with a general round table on

14 have consumers benefitted.

15 Dr. Newman?

16 DR. NEWMAN: I'm surprised to hear the data

17 about the lens cost because I thought it went down, and

18 see that's the neat thing about research is we can think

19 whatever we want, but the data tells us otherwise, and

20 provides us with inconvenient truths.

21 One other thing: We're not required to release

22 every prescription. There are a lot of us that

23 prescribe rigid contact lenses that are custom

24 prescribed, and so those numbers are not ever going to

25 be 100 percent on the surveys of whether we release
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1 prescriptions or not.

2 But if you say that, I mean, I think that

3 patients have their prescriptions, but if the cost isn't

4 going down, and we're seeing morbidity that's isolated

5 on a multivariate analysis to this particular group that

6 purchase lenses from alternative distribution channels,

7 have we helped the public or not? That's a good

8 question.

9 MR. SCHRAG: Well, thank you for your comment.

10 Why don't we just move down the line. First,

11 Joe Zeidner, please.

12 MR. ZEIDNER: Thank you. I know from our point

13 of view, the passage of a law, we did a test in Texas

14 and in California. In California, people were able to

15 purchase through passive verification. There was a law

16 that passed in California before the Federal law passed,

17 and passive verification means you don't have to get a

18 copy of your prescription from your doctor, that the

19 seller will contact the doctor and verify if the

20 information is correct. Then the doctor can choose if

21 he wants to get back to us or not. If there's a

22 problem, we hope he gets back to us and lets us know.

23 In Texas, we had an agreement with the Texas

24 Optometric Association, and they said that if we would

25 agree to wait to get a copy of the prescription, they
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1 would make sure that all the doctors gave us a copy of

2 the prescription when we requested. They didn't. There 

3 are over 60,000 complaints filed with the Texas Optometric 

4 Board and they said, we're sorry, we told our doctors to. 

5 So, there is definitely a problem.

6 When you said that all doctors profit from their

7 recommendations, it's very interesting, because I

8 thought that was a kickback. And I know that if you

9 recommend someone to go down to get an MRI, you're not

10 allowed to profit from that. But even if that were

11 correct, and it's not.

12 DR. NEWMAN: It is correct.

13 MR. ZEIDNER: You get paid for a recommendation

14 when you do a contact lens fitting. That is your

15 payment for the exam. Paying for a product is something

16 separate. You weren't there during the hearings when

17 the bill was first heard by Congress, but the

18 optometrists were asked if they would rather have a bill

19 that said you don't sell what you prescribe, because

20 that would definitely fix it. There wouldn't be any

21 conflict of interest, and there was, and AOA said, no,

22 actually we would rather have the FCLCA, they signed on

23 to support it. So, I don't know at this point what the

24 difference is.

25 DR. NEWMAN: I'm not speaking against that.
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1 What I'm saying is that when a surgeon recommends a

2 surgery, there is still a profit motive in place and

3 there are a lot of people, in fact there was a whole

4 thing, a whole study about this just released recently

5 about this whole health care paradigm being a

6 fee-for-service. You know, we don't want you to die, we

7 don't want you to get well, we need a whole new system.

8 MR. ZEIDNER: But they don't sell prescriptions

9 to the people.

10 DR. NEWMAN: Well, let's take an example.

11 Ophthalmologist says you need cataract surgery. Well,

12 the intraocular lens comes in a box, it's packaged in a

13 commodity way. Why are we not requiring the

14 ophthalmologist to allow the patient to shop for their

15 intraocular lens before they have their cataract

16 surgery? Heart stents are the same way. This notion that

17 because it's packaged and can be put at the front desk

18 of a Walmart or Walgreens for sale somehow changes

19 the ethics of the whole thing is not true.

20 That was my point, is that we have an ethical

21 construct to prescribe and to dispense products, whether

22 they're eyeglasses, contact lenses or whatever, in an

23 ethical manner, just like the veterinarians do, and just

24 like general physicians do, just like dentists do.

25 There's really no distinction.
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1 What I objected to was the false distinction

2 that we are somehow different from everybody else, and

3 we're not. That's what the point I was trying to make.

4 MR. SCHRAG: So, now maybe Bob Hubbard would

5 like to react.

6 MR. HUBBARD: Yeah. No, I mean, this really

7 does bring back memories for me and I remember when the

8 testimony on the legislation was going on, similar

9 fights were going on, and I was sort of sitting in the

10 middle, and I tried to represent consumers as best I

11 can.

12 So, I want to give as many alternatives as I can

13 to consumers, and the portability of the prescription is

14 one thing that that does. If there is an adverse health

15 consequence, that's something that the regulatory system

16 should address, and that should be discussed with

17 evidence, and we should go forward from there.

18 So, I think that the better alternatives

19 available to consumers are what's better, and in terms

20 of like if everything is broken, so let's not fix what

21 we can see that's broken, I've never particularly liked

22 that idea. When people come in and say that everybody

23 in the industry is doing it, I say, I'm open to evidence

24 about your competitors. I'm willing to name them as a

25 defendant, also, if you'd like.
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1 So, from my perspective, if the financial

2 incentives are screwed up, and if there's a potential

3 for abuse of power over the prescription, we ought to

4 fix that. If there are problems elsewhere, then we can

5 address those problems when they're articulated and we

6 can go forward from there.

7 MR. SCHRAG: Rob Atkinson I believe wanted to

8 weigh in.

9 MR. ATKINSON: Yeah, just a couple of things.

10 On the claim that, again, one of the studies that AOA

11 cites is this Optometry Journal study. I wouldn't call

12 that a peer-reviewed study. This is a journal for the

13 industry by the industry that accepted an article that

14 said everything is fine and if you get your lenses

15 online, you're going to have eye health issues.

16 So, I think before we make any claims about the

17 health studies, we really need independent, objective

18 experts to review the studies that have been put

19 forward. Because I can just tell you from a statistical

20 point of view, there are serious problems in at least

21 one of them.

22 The second point about this is we need to

23 understand risk. So, again, if you read the Australian

24 study, the risk is very, very low. So, without

25 stipulating that there's any risk, because who knows,
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1 the study could be right, could be wrong, it looks like

2 there are some problems, but we don't know. That's the

3 key point, we don't know.

4 But let's just say hypothetically there is a

5 risk of instead of one in 10,000 it goes to one in

6 8,000, but at the same time, consumers have saved $8

7 billion. Is that worth it? Any federal cost benefit

8 analysis would tell you that is definitely worth it.

9 So, the notion that there may be risk, and

10 again, I don't claim that there is, we don't know if

11 there's any risk. To say that that is the objective

12 standard for whether this is a good thing or a bad

13 thing, you cannot look at risk without looking at

14 benefit.

15 Now, to get to the benefit point, just a couple

16 of points on James' study. One of the things that James

17 did is he looked at basically the control group in his

18 study was online sellers. So, he looked at the ratio of

19 the changes with a various group of different sellers --

20 ECPs, Walmarts of the world to online -- and saw that it

21 didn't change. As I noted, I think there's one problem, 

22 which is that both that first year and the last year were

23 problematic years, and I'll bet if the study were done

24 again, we would have seen something different.

25 Secondly, that doesn't tell you very much,
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1 because what if competition, because of the law, forced

2 the 1-800s of the world to reduce their prices even

3 more, and as a result optometrists had to just keep up.

4 Well, that would be a huge consumer benefit, and you

5 can't tell which of those is right from the study.

6 Last point, one of the nice things that James'

7 study -- if you read it, I encourage you to read it -- he

8 does state, "offline sellers clearly offer the highest

9 prices in distribution, the 25 highest priced stores are

10 independent ECPs." Everybody knows who studies it, ECPs

11 have the highest prices, but what's interesting is if

12 you look in the last ten years, the share of sales

13 online has doubled, which means by definition, consumers

14 have saved an enormous amount of money, and you would

15 expect that share to keep going up as more people have

16 broadband.

17 So, just by definition, even if the people who

18 keep going to their optometrist to buy lenses, let's

19 just say there hasn't been a price change, which I don't

20 agree with, all the people who switched over to online

21 have had big benefits, and that's a benefit that we

22 can't just dismiss out of hand.

23 MR. SCHRAG: Thank you.

24 James, did you want to comment?

25 MR. COOPER: I have to. Anyway, I would just
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1 say that I think Rob and I actually agree in general. I

2 mean, again, I went into this online, off, looking at

3 the 2004 to 2007 comparison, completely agnostic, not to

4 prove a point one way or the other, just what happened.

5 We did this, let's see what happened to the prices. I

6 think I do a pretty good study.

7 Again the caveat with the 2004, I admit that, I

8 wish we could go back in time, but I didn't have RAs or

9 anyone in the FTC willing to collect data for me until

10 the fall of 2004. So, again, the Contact Lens Rule is

11 what was the triggering event and that went into effect

12 in October or September of 2004, and we collected data

13 starting in October.

14 So, we did miss a month. I'm doubtful that all

15 the price change, if there were increased competition,

16 occurred in that one month. We came back three-and-a-half 

17 years later with the exact same lenses, exact same

18 eye care practitioners. So it's a matched sample from

19 both.

20 So, I think to the extent, given the caveats,

21 the data is pretty well done. With respect to the 2007

22 end date, I know this is kind of getting into the weeds,

23 but the Proclear compatible. Number one, the

24 econometrics I use, I have what's called a

25 lens-specific, it's fixed effects. So, I have a little
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1 dummy variable that takes into account any idiosyncratic

2 effect of any lens. So, Proclear wouldn't be driving

3 the effects. Number two, Proclear is a tiny share

4 anyway. So, the 2007 end date is not likely to make an

5 effect, but again, I will completely own the caveat of

6 the 2004, I don't try to hide it. Read the paper. Go

7 to SSRN and download it, so I can up my downloads.

8 But I guess what I would say is again, back to

9 agreeing with Rob, is that my punchline here isn't the

10 prescription release requirement was bad, you need to know

11 the cost side of this, too. I mean, more choice is

12 unambiguously good, even if consumers don't use it.

13 So, let's say that my results suggest that,

14 well, to get this, but we're not seeing a huge effect,

15 they're not using this choice. But we have to know the

16 cost. And that's something I don't pretend to know.

17 We've heard debate back and forth here on the

18 panel of whether the study suggests that there are costs

19 to this, or there are not, but I would not want these

20 findings to suggest that the contact lens prescription

21 release requirement was a bad thing and I think talking

22 about in the pet meds context, I think we would also have

23 to know the costs and benefits. I mean, there are

24 likely benefits from release, you get more choice. More

25 choice I think is unambiguously good, but at the same
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1 time, there could be costs to that.

2 If, as Rob has pointed out, back to the contact

3 lens, if the costs were minuscule and increased the risk

4 of this micro -- this eye disease, compare that to what

5 consumers may have saved, then I think that that cost

6 benefit analysis, if those numbers are right, stand up,

7 but again, I don't pretend to know the other side of the

8 equation here.

9 MR. SCHRAG: Thank you.

10 So, I see that Kent McClure and Dr. Newman and

11 Joe Zeidner all have their tents up. I would like to

12 just ask that I think it would be useful for us to add a

13 little bit more color to exactly how the distribution and

14 retailing of contacts has changed since the promulgation

15 of the Contact Lens Rule.

16 So, we've heard a lot about some of the

17 potential benefits and costs to consumers, I think it

18 would be useful to hear more about how things have

19 changed and the degree to which that can be tied to the

20 Contact Lens Rule as opposed to other things that were

21 happening in the marketplace.

22 I want to give Kent McClure a chance to weigh

23 in.

24 MR. McCLURE: I will let you get to that in just a

25 second, I just want to make a couple of points, because
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1 in listening to this discussion, I can tell you that our

2 industry is about providing useful tools that can be

3 used by veterinarians in the delivery of health care. A

4 cost benefit analysis for us to say, well, gee, we only

5 had a little bit of increase in adverse events, but we

6 saved some money, those aren't the types of analysis

7 that are important to veterinary practitioners. We're 

8 about providing patient care, not worrying about just, oh,

9 there's only a small amount of the increase of adverse

10 events that could be prevented.

11 The other part of this that I heard that I

12 wanted to comment on is there's a lot of touting of the

13 online outlet for these products. To contrast that with

14 the pharmaceutical world or the animal health products

15 world, concurrent with the planning and preparation for

16 this workshop, the Food and Drug Administration has

17 undertaken a consumer awareness program warning them

18 that approximately 97 percent of online pharmacies don't

19 comply with state or federal law.

20 So, it's not like this is just an innocuous

21 alternative way to provide product to the consumer, and

22 there's just a lot of differences, I think, in a very

23 standardized product that's being dispensed versus

24 products being used in a myriad of different ways.

25 MR. SCHRAG: Thank you, Mr. McClure.
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1 Dr. Newman?

2 DR. NEWMAN: Just a couple of things, I don't

3 want to get off in a ditch on this thing, but the

4 Journal of the American Optometric Association is a

5 peer-reviewed journal, all three of these articles were

6 written by academics, reviewed by academics and

7 corrected by academics, and the comment that this is

8 a very rare finding and that a four, almost five times

9 increase among this one group that has been controlled

10 in multivariate analysis, I think is a disservice to the

11 public when we're bean counting relative to the cost

12 savings.

13 Ford bean counters did that with the Pinto and

14 it didn't work. If your kid was one of the 13 percent

15 that had permanent vision loss associated with microbial

16 keratitis, how many billions of dollars would you be

17 willing to trade for that? It ain't rare if it's in

18 your chair. Yes, these are not widespread events, but

19 they're catastrophic events when they do occur.

20 MR. SCHRAG: Thank you, Dr. Newman.

21 Joe Zeidner?

22 MR. ZEIDNER: Yeah. Just to answer your

23 question about how things have changed, I have a slide,

24 a couple of slides I was going to add to my presentation

25 but ran out of time, but it talks a little bit about the
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1 price comparison in today's dollars, and since we sell

2 more contact lenses than anyone, it might be

3 instructive, but really, prices have gone down quite a

4 bit.

5 If you want to put it up, just for an example,

6 the most popular, Acuvue 2 in 2004 in the FTC study was

7 $19.95, our price to consumers. In constant dollars in

8 2012, it's now $24.83. Our current pricing is $18.99 or

9 $20.99 if you buy just one box. So, prices have

10 definitely gone down.

11 The most important area, I think, is in 2003, as

12 indicated in our product brochure, we sold 37 different

13 brands and types of disposable lenses. Today there are

14 91 different types and brands, and there has been a lot

15 of manufacturer research and development. There's all

16 kinds of new polymers, more safe polymers that people

17 can sleep in, silicon hydrogels that are more

18 comfortable and have a higher oxygen permeability, and

19 that's what happens in the competitive marketplace when

20 manufacturers have to market the products based on what

21 the products do instead of who sells it. So, we think

22 that there have been some very big differences.

23 MR. SCHRAG: Thank you.

24 DR. NEWMAN: One quick comment? 

25 MR. SCHRAG: Yes, Dr. Newman?
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1 DR. NEWMAN: Yes, real quick. That may be true

2 that you guys are selling a lot more lenses, but a lot

3 of that owes to the fact that a lot of those lenses

4 weren't available when the Lens Act first came up.

5 One other point is in the Stapleton study, there

6 was no difference in the rates of problems with the

7 silicon hydrogels versus the regular hydrogels.

8 MR. ZEIDNER: No, I think that's why there are

9 more lenses, because of the act, and that's right. They

10 did not exist then, and I believe it's because of the

11 competition that we have more now.

12 MR. GILMAN: Thank you.

13 We're having a very useful discussion, I would

14 like to make time for a couple of the questions that

15 we've gotten from the audience. One of them from a

16 couple of sources really sort of has two components, and

17 I think points both to similarities and differences

18 here.

19 It's a question both about the full range of

20 pharmaceutical products that might be prescribed to

21 non-human animals, to pets, but also highlights, I

22 think, and how much more complex maybe that is than the

23 contact lens issue, but we talk not just about

24 prescription release here, but about restrictions on

25 distribution, and the question also asks whether we
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1 would really want the same treatment for EPA-regulated

2 products, for over-the-counter products.

3 So, I guess I would like to ask panelists, now I

4 know we have a very few vets here, but we do have

5 veterinarian representation on the panel, and I guess if

6 we could circle back, I would like to ask whether, on

7 behalf of some others, whether that might be a decent

8 fit and whether we can think of a good medical or

9 business reasons for restrictions on distribution, not

10 on the full range of animal medicines, but for

11 EPA-regulated, over-the-counter products.

12 Dr. Welborn?

13 DR. WELBORN: I'll weigh in on that. Actually,

14 this was a subject that I wanted to bring up, based on

15 some of the comments that Mr. Zeidner made. He

16 mentioned that there were 60,000 complaints to the Texas

17 Optometric Board about individuals' eye care

18 professionals that were not releasing prescriptions, and

19 my question was, how many complaints have been received

20 from consumers about veterinarians not releasing

21 prescriptions, but that's sort of the corollary. The

22 number that sort of struck me that's somewhere close to

23 60,000 was 44,000, that was the number of complaints

24 that the EPA received in one year related to consumer

25 concerns about adverse events related to
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1 over-the-counter flea and tick control products that at

2 one point in time were distributed predominantly through

3 veterinarians, and now are to a large degree distributed

4 through other outlets.

5 One questions whether or not that number of

6 complaints about side effects for those medications

7 would have occurred had those products been continued to

8 be distributed predominantly through veterinarians. The

9 most common adverse event was related to applying a dog

10 product on a cat, which can be life-threatening for

11 cats. That is very unlikely to happen if the

12 veterinarian is dispensing the product because the

13 instruction on the use of the product is fairly

14 straightforward in that regard, whereas if it's

15 purchased from another outlet, there's typically no

16 guidance in the use of the product at all.

17 MR. GILMAN: Doctor, can I ask just a follow-up

18 question? I mean, one thing we know from the human side

19 is that highly trained professionals -- for instance in a

20 hospital setting, physicians, pharmacists, nurses --

21 dispensing human medicines all within the building have

22 certain incidents -- maybe some find it alarming; the

23 Institute of Medicine has found it alarming -- of

24 medication errors leading to serious adverse events.

25 I guess that raises the question, these all seem
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1 to be serious safety concerns we might have about one or

2 another channel of distribution, but I guess one

3 question I would ask is how good is the information, how

4 good are the data, what do we really know about the

5 incidence of adverse events or medication errors

6 associated with sort of the traditional what's sometimes

7 called ethical channel of distribution?

8 DR. WELBORN: All right. I don't think I have

9 any numbers about the adverse events that are occurring.

10 I think one difference relative to veterinary medicine

11 from human medicine is that veterinarians and their

12 staff members spend a lot more time with their clients,

13 with pet owners. I mean, the reality is that we have

14 the luxury to do that. We are not nearly as busy as

15 human health care providers. We don't have the same

16 time pressures to be able to move patients through the

17 system as quickly as those pressures that occur in the

18 human health care system.

19 So, I think that type of thing is much less

20 likely to occur in the veterinary field because we

21 simply have more time to spend with our patients and our

22 clients.

23 MR. GILMAN: One more question from the

24 audience, this is written for one of our participants,

25 but I think I would like to pose it to the panel or at
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1 least to Dr. Newman, to James Cooper and to Rob

2 Atkinson. Sometimes we have the data we have, and we

3 make do, when we can treat it more carefully or less

4 carefully.

5 I think one of the things we have seen in the

6 discussion here is that both with regard to optical

7 goods and with regard to pet medicines, that sometimes

8 we don't have all the data that we would like to have.

9 So, we have an Australian study, it's not completely

10 different, but it does raise the question, what do we

11 know about risk in the United States, and parsing

12 different categories of alternative vendors, so to

13 translate into the pet medicine space, would we treat

14 Drs. Foster & Smith the same, lump them for data purposes 

15 in with bogus websites where there are no pharmacists or

16 vets or checking for prescriptions? A study asking, for

17 instance, 151 Brooklyn college students what their habits

18 are for return check-ups, where they have to do regression

19 analysis on insignificant correlations might not be ideal.

20 James has an extensive discussion in his paper

21 on limitations on his data, I guess I just ask all of

22 you if there are some key data you would like to have

23 and key studies you would like to see done that would

24 both or either teach us more about the effects of the

25 Contact Lens Rule or about what we want, should want to
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1 know for considering policy interventions in the

2 veterinary space.

3 Dr. Newman?

4 DR. NEWMAN: First off to address the

5 differences between Australia and the United States. In

6 Dr. Stapleton's paper, she addresses that up front.

7 There are several large-scale epidemiological studies

8 regarding the incidence of this one thing that we focus

9 on, microbial keratitis, which is the worst of things

10 that can happen with contact lenses, but there are a

11 whole bunch of other minor complications that can happen

12 across the board, and I would like to see data done on

13 those elements relative to the mode of distribution and

14 controlled well in multivariate analysis.

15 In the Stapleton study, her data was very, very

16 consistent and correlated very well with the Poggio and

17 Schein studies relative to the risk of microbial

18 keratitis. So, the inference from that was that things

19 are not that different in Australia versus the United

20 States.

21 So, I think we can compare those studies, but it

22 would be nice to see that exact same study done in the

23 United States as well. I would like to see the same

24 type of multivariate analysis that parses out these

25 defects in large scale studies done for not only
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1 microbial keratitis, but also for some of the minor

2 complications that we see in eye care.

3 MR. GILMAN: James?

4 MR. COOPER: First I would like to have a time

5 machine and go back to, say, August of 2004. So, that's

6 wish number one. But leaving us and staying in the

7 realm of reality, I think one thing that's unclear, my

8 results suggest that I have to look indirectly. I'm

9 looking at competition, so I'm looking at price. The

10 price gap between online and offline, but it would be

11 interesting to have direct evidence on kind of

12 microdata, what are consumers actually doing at

13 prescribers, have a sample of prescribers that you

14 follow the prices they're charging.

15 One thing I can't rule out is I don't find an

16 effect. I kind of assume that there's a law and people

17 are following it, but listening to this panel, it sounds

18 like maybe some people aren't. So, maybe the no effect 

19 is because eye doctors aren't giving away their 

20 prescriptions. I can't rule that out, that would be a 

21 piece of data that would be interesting to know to what 

22 extent is the choice to stick with your prescriber one 

23 you already have it in your hands and you just decide to 

24 stay there.

25 One of my hypotheses and a possible explanation
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1 for this data is this thing called ordered search that I

2 never really got to, but if you're going to search in a

3 predetermined order, and everybody knows that. So, the

4 eye doctor knows that he is going to give you the

5 prescription and he also sells the lens that he

6 prescribes, he is going to be the first draw in your

7 price distribution.

8 So, if you're going to search for prices, he

9 knows he's always going to be, he or she knows

10 that they are always going to be first. Knowing that, and

11 knowing that search is expensive, even if I want to go

12 somewhere else and look on 1-800-Contacts, or go and

13 check with Walmart, it costs something. It's not free.

14 So, that allows that first person in the queue of search

15 to extract a premium. Maybe that explains this

16 persistent prescriber premium we see, or at least some

17 extent of it.

18 One thing that would be interesting, and this

19 came in the conversations I had with Dan and Joel

20 leading up to this conference, is nowadays we all have

21 one of these (cell phone in hand), right, so my doctor says

22 I'm going to give you Acuvue 2, and you can pick it up in

23 the lobby. Okay, well how much is it? Hold on, let me

24 check 1-800-Contacts. I say it half jokingly, but there's 

25 a large literature on how online and offline, how having
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1 price search engines has perhaps reduced search costs

2 and led to more competition among sellers. I mean, here

3 you go, you can find prices.

4 DR. NEWMAN: Practically, that's true. I have a

5 large-scale long sample of one doctor over years. There

6 is no question that I am not that first in the chain.

7 In this day and age. Maybe ten years ago, I was the

8 first guy in that distribution chain. Now, practically

9 every patient I come in contact with already knows how

10 much they're selling them for, Coastal and Walmart and

11 Costco, when they walk into my office. So, I'm usually

12 like the fifth guy in the chain.

13 MR. COOPER: And I guess that's assuming that

14 they already know what you're going to prescribe. Are

15 these return customers in the sense that they have been

16 wearing Acuvue forever?

17 DR. NEWMAN: Most of them, yeah, most of them

18 are already wearing them.

19 MR. COOPER: And I think that's going back to

20 the data, the sort of fine data to figure out. Because

21 there are different incentives with respect to each

22 consumer.

23 DR. NEWMAN: One way you could parse that out is

24 look at neophyte wearers versus existing wearers,

25 because the doctor is almost always the first guy in the
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1 chain.

2 MR. COOPER: And you're exactly right, that's a

3 way to tease out that ordered search effect.

4 Let me say one more thing and then I'll shut up,

5 but you gave me the floor to talk about the data I want.

6 The last thing, this is a theory that let's say that

7 there's this lock-in. Let's say that it's right, that

8 you can still take advantage, that the eye docs can

9 still take advantage of their consumers by locking in,

10 they'll say limited distribution lenses or somehow get a

11 premium out of that. There's a theory that, well, since

12 you're bundling the eye care exam with the lens, the eye

13 care, there is a lot of competition to write

14 prescriptions.

15 So, if you know once you get a customer in the

16 door to write a prescription, you're going to be able to

17 screw them over with the high price at the end. Well,

18 there's going to be competition up front to get that

19 after-market lock-in.

20 So, that leads to a slight inefficiency, a

21 distribution inefficiency or allocation inefficiency

22 between the price. So, what happens is the price of the

23 exam gets driven down below the competitive level, to

24 compensate for the price of the lens being above the

25 competitive level.
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1 It would be interesting to see, again, I didn't

2 have the resources or the ability to get prices of eye

3 exams in 2004, and then go back in 2007, but that's,

4 again, a theory that would be very interesting to test.

5 It may be ripe in the pet meds area as I understand the

6 legal landscape is there's a lot of state variation in

7 laws, and there's also no federal law at the time. So,

8 you could take advantage of that state variation to do a

9 much more rich econometrics potentially to look at how

10 states vary and you could maybe get vet exam prices in

11 different states with different legal regimes. So,

12 I'll be quiet now.

13 DR. NEWMAN: One quick comment.

14 MR. GILMAN: Actually, I'm sorry to interrupt,

15 but I do want to give Rob Atkinson a chance in case he

16 has some thoughts on this.

17 MR. ATKINSON: Just a couple of quick thoughts.

18 I actually think that Dr. Newman made my case for me,

19 which is that consumers now are coming in and saying

20 here's what I can buy, the repeat consumers coming in, I

21 can get it from this price and they're demanding and

22 expecting that price in return. That to me is an

23 unalloyed, direct consumer benefit from having more

24 competition from prescription release.

25 I think one of the interesting things that a
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1 couple of people have alluded to in the studies, which

2 don't ask, is online really a gross measure?

3 Online from Fred the gas station who happens to run a

4 little website or online from 1-800-Contacts or online

5 from your eye care provider. Nobody asked that

6 question.

7 So, that's my other question. If online is so

8 bad, why do optometrists run websites? You can buy from

9 many optometrists, you can go and get your lenses from

10 their website. If online is really the problem, where

11 it's leading to ocular health, then why are optometrists

12 even prescribing online? So, I think that would be

13 useful to put in a study.

14 The other thing I think we need is we need, if I

15 were ever king, my first rule would be Congress would

16 create the Office of the Federal Statistician, and we

17 would send these studies to the Office of the Federal

18 Statistician and they would say, these are legitimate

19 studies. Simply saying they're multivariate, if you

20 know statistics, is essentially saying they're a study.

21 I mean, that's a meaningless term. It could be a good

22 multivariate study and it could be a bad multivariate

23 study. When I took Ph.D. statistics, you learned that

24 pretty early in the first couple of classes.

25 So, I think what we really need if we're going
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1 to look at these health effects, we need a legitimate

2 objective understanding from people who understand 

3 rigorous statistics and research methods to look at

4 these studies and say they stand up or not, because

5 right now we don't really have that.

6 MR. GILMAN: And only inside the beltway can we

7 find people who can honestly say that would be their

8 first act as king.

9 MR. ATKINSON: I readily admit that.

10 MR. GILMAN: So, I do want to get to Joe Zeidner

11 and Dr. Newman before we turn things over for the

12 conclusion.

13 MR. ZEIDNER: Yeah, I think one really good

14 study that we would like to see done deals with

15 prescription release. We know that the FTC found that

16 that was a problem with the Eyeglass Rule after the

17 Eyeglass Rule was passed. It's been a problem with the

18 Contact Lens Rule, even as late as 2007, by admission of

19 doctors.

20 We believe that there has been a lot of scrutiny

21 of our industry, and we have had a lot of complaints to

22 deal with, and we have talked with FTC, Congressmen,

23 optometrists. But there has not been a study done on

24 whether or not optometrists are releasing prescriptions,

25 which could account for some of the lack of data in your
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1 study, James, and we think that that would be something

2 that would be a good follow-up is to see if doctors

3 really are releasing prescriptions.

4 MR. GILMAN: Thanks, Joe.

5 Dr. Newman?

6 DR. NEWMAN: A couple of comments. I don't

7 think that's the problem. Sure, we could do that study.

8 The state boards hammer anybody that gets a complaint,

9 and so if a patient is not getting a prescription, they

10 complain to the state board and they get hammered almost

11 immediately. So, I think it's a pretty good --

12 MR. ZEIDNER: Not in Texas.

13 DR. NEWMAN: Yeah, in Texas.

14 MR. ZEIDNER: No, not with the 60,000

15 complaints.

16 DR. NEWMAN: Okay, that happened before the act

17 was passed. Don't conflate that.

18 MR. ZEIDNER: That's why the act was passed.

19 DR. NEWMAN: Don't conflate that with what's

20 happened since the act passed.

21 MR. ZEIDNER: But they didn't give prescriptions

22 when the board told them they were going to.

23 DR. NEWMAN: Okay. Last point. With regard to

24 the allocation of access between exams and lens cost,

25 and I think the vets in this room would agree with me.
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1 There's an old poker adage that you can sheer a sheep many

2 times but only skin them once, and we find that out very

3 quickly in private practice. Whether we're talking

4 about Medicare, with Physician Compare that's coming

5 online, comparing the quality outcomes and costs, this

6 is something that's huge in the health care reform

7 industry, it's something that we're all feeling

8 pressures, whether you're a physician, an optometrist, a

9 podiatrist or a doctor of veterinary medicine. If you

10 don't toe those lines, then you're going to be out of the

11 system, and I think that's something that would factor

12 into the cost analysis between exams and lenses.

13 MR. ATKINSON: You shouldn't forget, by the way,

14 that in 2007 there was a study done by your professional

15 association that says that half their doctors don't

16 release their prescription. That to me is pretty

17 obvious that there's a potential problem. It may not be

18 a problem, there may be a reason, but the fact that half

19 report they don't give a prescription.

20 DR. NEWMAN: Well, I mean we need to look at

21 that data with your statistician, as we go down the

22 line, but it is something that's worth looking at.

23 Again, you'll never have 100 percent on contact lens

24 prescription release because we're not required to

25 release every contact lens prescription.
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1 MR. GILMAN: Thank you.

2 So, I think this has been an excellent and

3 animated discussion, and I would like to thank all our

4 panelists for participating, and I would also, we can

5 see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I would like

6 to turn the floor over to Andy Gavil, the director of

7 the FTC's Office of Policy Planning, for some wrap-up

8 and concluding remarks.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR. GAVIL: Fear not, they are really brief.

11 Thank you all for joining us. Obviously we've had a

12 very informative and thought-provoking day. We would

13 especially like to thank our many panelists who shared

14 their thoughts with us on a range of important issues

15 affecting the pet medications industry and the millions

16 of American pet-owning consumers.

17 Obviously today's panels have left us with a lot

18 to chew on in the coming months and a number of ideas

19 have been identified that might warrant further research

20 and study, and I look forward to working with our staff

21 to digest all that we have learned.

22 A few closing points. All slides presented by

23 our speakers today will be posted on the pet meds

24 workshop webpage. In addition, there will be an

25 archived webcast of today's proceeding and a complete
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1 transcript will be forthcoming in the near future, also

2 on the webpage.

3 Also, just a reminder that the Commission has

4 extended the public comment period to November 1st, so

5 please feel free to submit any additional comments or

6 responses to today's presentations and discussion.

7 In closing, I would like to thank all of the

8 members of the Pet Meds Workshop team, especially our

9 panel moderators and co-moderators who have worked very

10 hard to prepare for and conduct today's workshop. From

11 the Office of Policy Planning: Dan Gilman, Christopher

12 Grengs, Elizabeth Jex, Tara Koslov, Susan DeSanti and

13 Stephanie Wilkinson; from the Bureau of Economics:

14 Joel Schrag; and from the Bureau of Competition: Kelly

15 Signs, Erin Flynn and Lauren Rine.

16 A special thanks to Stephanie Wilkinson from

17 OPP, who spear-headed our efforts, kept us focused and

18 moving forward, as always with good cheer. Well done.

19 It's over, Stephanie, where are you? There she is.

20 (Applause.)

21 MR. GAVIL: And our appreciation to the Office

22 of Public Affairs for help with publicity and social

23 media, and the staff of the Office of the Executive

24 Director for event planning and technical support. Yes,

25 it takes a village to put on a workshop.
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1 Finally, I would like to thank Chairman

2 Leibowitz for joining us this morning and for the

3 support of his office. For those of you who have been

4 obediently sitting and staying as he requested, you are

5 now released, but please do heel as you leave the

6 building. As a relative newcomer to the Commission, I 

7 feel reassured by his participation today that we haven't

8 been barking up the wrong tree, which might have landed

9 me in the doghouse. Yes, I couldn't resist. Thank you

10 all for joining us, bye-bye.

11 (Applause.)

12 (Whereupon, at 4:38 p.m., the workshop was

13 concluded.)

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1 CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIPTIONIST

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3

4 I, Sally Jo Quade, do hereby certify that the

5 foregoing proceedings were transcribed by me via

6 audiotape/CD/WAV file and reduced to typewriting under

7 my supervision; that I am neither counsel for, related

8 to, nor employed by any of the parties to the action in

9 which these proceedings were transcribed; and further,

10 that I am not a relative or employee of any attorney or

11 counsel employed by the parties hereto, nor financially

12 or otherwise interested in the outcome of the action.

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17 _________________________________

18 Sally Jo Quade

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