Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14040

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Publication type: news

Shanahan L.
Drug companies fined record $1.8m
The Age (Melbourne) 2008 Jul 26
http://www.theage.com.au/national/drug-companies-fined-record-18m-20080725-3l3c.html

Full text:

DRUG company giant Pfizer has been hit with a record $200,000 fine and found guilty of bringing discredit to the industry after its representatives wrongly told doctors a rival drug was dangerous.

The penalty formed part of a record $1.8 million of fines handed down to some of the world’s largest drug companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and Roche, by industry self-regulator Medicines Australia.

Many of the 37 upheld complaints in the annual report were a result of lavish “educational events” for doctors that big pharmaceutical companies spent $31 million on in just the last six months of last year.

But the biggest fines were a result of drug companies making complaints against competitors.

Pfizer Australia was fined $200,000, the largest one-off fine Medicines Australia have given a company, after its representatives in NSW and Queensland were found guilty of telling doctors a cholesterol-lowering drug produced by rival AstraZeneca could cause kidney damage.

The company was found guilty of a range of breaches of the code including making false and misleading claims and the most serious breach of bringing “discredit to and reduction of confidence in the industry”.

A statement by Pfizer Australia yesterday said an investigation had established that while representatives “may have made some statements of the kind alleged by AstraZeneca … no senior manager at Pfizer Australia was aware that the conduct was taking place”.

In another feud Roche was fined $110,000 after complaints from fellow pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline Australia that it sent out media releases promoting unregistered products.

But GSKA was itself the subject of complaints by rivals and was forced to pay $100,000 in two separate decisions for distributing deceptive promotional material about its products.

GSKA also received $210,000 in fines for two doctors’ conferences at luxury hotels on Sydney’s Darling Harbour.

One conference called the “Gold GP diabetes forum” cost $102,970, with almost 90% of that spent on hospitality for the 79 doctors attending. Medicines Australia found “less than five hours of actual education was provided” and GSKA guilty of bringing discredit to the industry.

Solvay Pharmaceuticals was guilty of bringing discredit to the industry and fined $100,000 for two “educational events”, one of which involved an overnight stay in Western Australia’s wine region and consisted of a $217-a-head dinner and two hours of education.

Other such events to attract fines included:

■A two-day conference at the Sofitel on the Gold Coast for 36 registrars that cost almost $70,000 and included only 5½ hours of education, which earned drug company Nycomed a $60,000 fine.

■A two-day physicians’ clinical meeting in Quay West Resort Bunker Bay in WA comprising of five hours and 45 minutes of education, resulting in a $60,000 fine for Servier Laboratories.