The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7406 p744
24 June 2006

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Four companies discredit pharmaceutical industry

Four companies have been ruled to have brought the pharmaceutical industry into disrepute following recent complaints that they broke the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's code of practice.

Serono brought discredit on the industry by paying 30 neurologists to prescribe one of its drugs. The company has been ordered by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which enforces the code, to ask for its money back.

The doctors were paid £700 each to cover administrative costs associated with an audit of a project to transfer multiple sclerosis patients from low-dose interferon treatment made by Serono, Biogen or Schering Health Care, to a high-dose treatment made only by Serono and to monitor its effect. A PMCPA inquiry panel ruled that the project was not a bona fide audit and the arrangements amounted to paying doctors to prescribe Serono’s Rebif (interferon beta-1a). A PMCPA appeal board subsequently ordered the company to ask for its money back in case the doctors concerned got the impression that payment in such circumstances was acceptable.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Pfizer brought discredit on the industry by paying for a night out for a GP, three nurses and some practice administrative staff. The two companies provided conflicting accounts of whom they took to a restaurant and wine bar, what the purpose of the event was and who paid for what.

A PMCPA appeal board ruled that the discredit was heightened by the involvement of two companies together and that the event could give outsiders the impression that such practices were commonplace.

Sankyo Pharma brought discredit on the industry by failing to comply with an undertaking it gave after being found in breach of the code on a previous occasion. The company had repeated a claim that Olmetec (olmesartan) was unbeaten at reducing hypertension. Its behaviour also reduced confidence in the industry.

In another case, not involving such serious breaches of the industry’s code, Menarini Pharma has been ordered to ask 54,000 doctors to return misleading leaflets supplied by the company. The leaflets gave the false impression that Nebilet (nebivolol) had been shown by the Anglo Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial to provide better blood pressure control than atenolol, even though the trial had not included Nebilet.