Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8487

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Publication type: news

Cresswell A.
Drug firm fined $75,000 over lavish meals for doctors
The Australian 2007 Feb 13
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21216308-2702,00.html

Full text:

GIANT drug company Roche has been fined $75,000 by the industry watchdog for spending tens of thousands of dollars wining and dining hundreds of doctors at some of Sydney’s most exclusive restaurants.

One dinner for 200 specialists, costing more than $200 a head, was held at the Guillaume at Bennelong restaurant, in the Sydney Opera House.
That dinner – first revealed in The Australian last year – was followed by a lavish meal at another top eatery, The Boathouse, costing more than $2000, where the select diners were treated to $85 bottles of wine.

An event for 18 people in a private room at the restaurant Aria cost $4000.

Drug industry rules say hospitality provided to doctors at educational events must be “simple and modest”.

The $75,000 fine was imposed by the industry-run committee that considers breaches of its voluntary code of conduct. The Medicines Australia Code of Conduct Committee – whose latest six-monthly report was released yesterday – found Roche “brought the industry into disrepute” through the lavish functions, which were part of two educational events for cancer specialists and other doctors.

Critics have slammed the $75,000 fine as inadequate, saying Roche spent almost as much, $65,000, on the meals that prompted the complaint.

There was also concern that the Therapeutic Goods Administration only made a complaint to Medicines Australia – the drug industry’s umbrella group, which oversees the code of conduct – after seeing The Australian’s report.

Ken Harvey, adjunct senior research fellow in the School of Public Health at Victoria’s LaTrobe University, said the TGA did “bugger-all” to rein in excessive promotion. “They essentially have hand-balled it to the industry, and the results show it’s not working,” he said.

“I don’t believe the system works … a fine even of $75,000 is really a minor deterrent.”

A Roche spokeswoman said the company “does take seriously the code and the role of the independent committee whose role it is to review complaints”.

The latest report revealed that another drug giant, Bayer Healthcare, escaped a fine for breaching the rules with a controversial “money-back guarantee” offer for its impotence drug Levitra. The committee found money-back guarantees “decrease the value of prescription medicines and brought discredit to the industry”.