Pharmas ‘bribing’ docs to face drug sale ban

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 23

Pharmaceutical firms “bribing” doctors and chemists with gifts and payments for their travel and food could invite ban on the sale of their top brands.

Travel and hospitality costs and gifts worth over Rs 1 lakh to a doctor will lead to over one-year suspension of marketing of such a company’s highest selling brand (over the past 12 months). The companies will be allowed to fight the ban on top brands, provided they pay up to Rs 10 crore as penalty.

The Essential Commodities (Control of Unethical Practices in Marketing of Drugs) Order, 2017, awaiting the nod of Law Ministry, proposes specific penalties drug companies will have to pay if they offer gifts to doctors and pharmacists or cover their travel and hospitality expenses to boost sales.

The order, drafted by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, aims to curb rising prices of drugs due to unethical marketing practices and is the first serious attempt to break the unholy nexus between doctors, pharmacists and drug companies. It doesn’t, however, cover the booming medical device industry. The Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) describes it as rueful, given the huge margins in the implants industry.

Provisions of the government order say pharmaceutical companies and their agents “will not offer gifts, cash cards, hampers or anything which generates monetary benefits to medical practitioners, or any retail chemists or pharmacists or their family members nor will they make available any travel facility, stay or cover food cost within India or outside, including by rail, air, ship, cruise or offer paid vacation of doctors or their relatives for attending seminars or scientific meetings”.

The order, however, allows firms to sponsor seminars, including continuing medical education or scientific meetings organised by medical associations provided such associations maintain a log of sponsorship featuring costs incurred and agenda.

The firms are also allowed to hold screening and awareness camps in government hospitals and centres “without using these camps for surrogate advertising of their products”.

Penalty will be announced by ethics compliance officers (not below the rank of a joint secretary), which the Centre and states will appoint to adjudicate complaints of unethical practices against such firms. The officers can commute their own orders suspending the marketing of a drug of a firm if it applies for relief. The relief will, however, come at a cost.

For commutation of suspension of marketing ban for six months (when firms give doctors gifts worth Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000), the defaulting firm will have to pay Rs 10 lakh. Suspension of nine-month ban (for gifts worth Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000) can be commuted by paying Rs 50 lakh. To commute suspension of marketing for one year (for gifts worth Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh), Rs 1 crore will have to be paid and for relief from suspension of marketing for over a year (when gifts worth over Rs 1 lakh have been given), Rs 10 crore penalty will be imposed.

Doctors, however, feel allowing pharmaceutical firms to pay their way through suspensions won’t serve the purpose.

Commutation may cost up to Rs 10 crore

• Govt's ‘soon to be notified’ order against unethical drug marketing practices proposes penalties if drug firms offer gifts to doctors and pharmacists or cover their travel and hospitality expenses to boost sales
• The firms offering gifts worth Rs 1 lakh to a doctor will face a year-plus sales ban on their top drug brand; commutation of ban will be allowed only on the payment of Rs 10 crore as penalty