Drats! I was looking forward to going to the Commercial Support: Regulations, Ethics, and Relationships forum this morning, but it was so jammed that I could only get a seat in the hallway, until security made us leave because we were a fire hazard.
But I ended up at a great session that used an audience response system to quiz us on our knowledge of both well-known and pretty obscure regulatory points. I'll post them as I get time to between sessions.
Here's one: Is there a limit to the amount of honoraria that can be paid?
1. The limiting factor is the amount of commercial support available.
2. It must be reasonable and of fair market value.
3. It depends on the faculty's negotiating skills ;>
Our audience came up 13 percent for #1, 80 percent for #2, 7 percent (the wise guys, of course) for #3. The audience was right, or at least 80 percent of us were. A panelist who works for a pharma company elaborated that his company sets a dollar-per-year limit, but re-evaluates regularly to make sure it remains a fair and reasonable amount, adding that the OIG mentions that it should be fair market value.
