• The New York Times, Thursday, July 10, 2008 11:30 AM

The pharmaceutical industry will announce today revised guidelines for marketing campaigns that will, among other things, require drug makers to set annual limits on the amounts they will pay doctors to deliver educational lectures to colleagues, although the code does not specify what the limit should be. It will also ban the pads, mugs and other gifts that drug makers have long showered on doctors.

The industry's Code on Interactions with Health Care Professionals will ask the CEOs of large drug makers to certify in writing that "they have policies and procedures in place to foster compliance with the code." The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's trade association, wrote the code.

Some industry critics praise the new rules, while other point out that they are voluntary and say they don't go far enough. The code provides no definite limits on the millions of dollars spent on speaking and consulting arrangements that drug makers have forged with doctors, for example. Nor does it ban the routine provision of office breakfasts and lunches, or the occasional invitation to educational dinners at upscale restaurants.

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