Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19573

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Report

BUKO Pharma, Health Action International, Institute of Public Health
At any price? - Examination of the business behaviour of Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer and Baxter in India
Pharma Brief Special 2011 May 61:
www.en.bukopharma.de/uploads/file/Pharma-Brief/E2011_01_special.pdf

Full text:

BUKO Pharma-Kampagne and the Institute of Public Health Bangalore/ India
have made a survey of the business behaviour of Bayer Health Care,
Boehringer Ingelheim and Baxter in India. The results: these companies
sell many irrational preparations and offer only few essential
innovations. Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim conduct numerous clinical
trials in India, but they prefer to search for new applications of their
blockbusters instead of doing research in the field of neglected
diseases. Especially Boehringer Ingelheim has a poor pharmaceutical
portfolio with 70% of irrational drugs and no essential preparation. On
the other hand, the company renounce to strictly assume their patent
rights in the case of nevirapine. This important Aids drug can therefore
be generically produced in India at a low price, which ensures access to
this drug for poor countries, in particular in southern Africa. Whereas
64% of Bayer products sold in India are rational, the aggressive patent
policy of that German company blocks access to the innovative cancer
drug sorafenib (Nexavar®). The company Baxter has a quite good product
portfolio with 88% of rational products including 44% of essential
drugs. But many of those products do not have a generic alternative in
India. Their price is high and excludes the poor from access.

The full study can be downloaded from the website of BUKO
Pharma-Kampagne. http://www.en.bukopharma.de/index.php?page=Publications

The study is also available in German.
http://www.bukopharma.de/index.php?page=pharma-brief-spezial

In 1981 BUKO Pharma-Kampagne (www.en.bukopharma.de ) started a campaign
against global malpractices in drug marketing by multinational
pharmaceutical companies. The focus of the Pharma-Kampagne is to stop
unethical drug marketing practices and to foster rational use of drugs
all over the world. The Pharma-Kampagne works with medical students,
doctors, pharmacists and medical scientists, through campaigns,
publications, press work, public debate and dialogue.