Pharmaceutical company payments to health care professionals dropped between 2011 and 2012 among most of the companies and categories ProPublica tracks, driven in part by increased transparency as well as blockbuster drugs losing patent protection. Research payments, however, have increased among that group. Payments to health care providers for speaking decreased by 38.1% among the nine companies that reported for both years. Payments to health care providers for research increased by 6.9% among the six companies that reported for both years.
