Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2671

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: news

Cresswell A.
Small fines 'let drug giants off hook'
The Australian Newspaper 2005 Oct 17
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940396%5E23289,00.html

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
So this is what self-regulation is all about!
Flagrant breaches of the Code of Conduct resulting occasionally in tiny fines which are sometimes reduced to nothing on appeal!

Full text: Small fines ‘let drug giants off hook’ Adam Cresswell October 17, 2005

RECORD fines of almost $500,000 were imposed on drug companies for breaching rules on advertising and promotion last year but the industry watchdog is under fire for letting too many drug giants off the hook.

The latest annual report of the Medicines Australia code of conduct reveals the number of complaints about drug company behaviour leapt from 36 in 2003-04 to 51 in 2004-05.

The 51 complaints resulted in 20 fines worth a total of $471,500 – nearly treble the $165,000 in fines issued the previous year, and more than 10 times the $40,000 in fines handed out in 2002-03.

The industry co-operates with the complaints system voluntarily. Fines are set by independent committees supported by Medicines Australia, which represents the pharmaceutical industry.

The biggest fine, $100,000, was imposed on Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline over a website that was found to promote the anti-impotence drug Levitra. In another case, Novo Nordisk was fined $50,000 after a representative obtained patients’ private details from a pharmacist and sent them an invitation to attend an “educational meeting” related to the company’s insulin product, used to treat diabetes.

Another drug company, AstraZeneca, was fined $25,000 after convening “advisory boards” in each state to discuss the company’s asthma prevention drug, Symbicort, in relieving acute asthma attacks – even though it is not approved in Australia as a single therapy for both prevention and relief of acute attacks.

Despite the increase in total fines, experts attacked the policing of the code as inadequate. Of the eight fines of more than $25,000, four were reduced substantially on appeal, or wiped out.

In one case, a $50,000 fine imposed on Pfizer for paying doctors a $500 “honorarium” for attending a meeting to discuss the Cox-2 class of arthritis drugs was quashed by an appeal committee.

Pfizer’s own Cox-2 drug, Celebrex, is one of the top-selling drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and was the 11th-biggest drain on the PBS in 2003-04, costing the scheme $79million.

Another fine of $150,000, relating to misleading information about Celebrex, was cut to $30,000 on appeal after Pfizer accused the committee of bias.

Tim Woodruff, president of the Doctors Reform Society who made the complaint against Pfizer for the $500 payments, said there was “no chance Medicines Australia is going to do a reasonable job policing its own industry”.

“The evidence presented by the latest report clearly shows that even when fines are imposed, the amount of the fine is insignificant compared to turnover,” he said. “And then we see further reductions in these fines on appeal – appeals that are essentially conducted in-house.”

David Henry, professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Newcastle, said most complaints were lodged by rival drug companies. “The motivation is probably to stymie advertising campaigns by their competitors, rather than any concern over what misleading ads might do to the public,” he said.

But Medicines Australia defended the system, saying the majority of members of both initial and appeal committees were not from the industry.

MA director of scientific and technical affairs Deborah Monk said many complaints from rival firms were based on “subtle” breaches of the code and clear breaches were rare.