The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7234 p139
1 February 2003

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OFT chief denies conflict of interest in pharmacy report

Accusations that the Director General of Fair Trading, John Vickers, was wrong to have taken part in an inquiry into the pharmacy market because of a possible conflict of interest have been denied by the Office of Fair Trading.

It emerged on 27 January that Mr Vickers had ruled himself out of an OFT investigation into plans for a takeover of Safeway because he had been a paid adviser on mergers for supermarket groups while he was an economics professor in the 1990s.

John D'Arcy, chief executive of the National Pharmaceutical Association, said: "If John Vickers has got a conflict of interest now, he must have had when he started the pharmacy inquiry. You can try to differentiate it, but the pharmacy inquiry was heavily influenced by the impact supermarkets could have in the pharmacy market. This must cast serious doubt about the objectivity of the pharmacy inquiry."

Denying that there was a conflict of interest, an OFT spokesman said: "It's a totally different issue. The director general's previous work related specifically to mergers. The pharmacy inquiry was a wider study related to entry to the market." He added: "We don't expect large numbers of pharmacies to close."