Daiichi-Sankyo cleared of rep misconduct
pharmafile | November 22, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | ABPI, ABPI Code of Practice, Daiichi Sankyo, Daiichi-Sankyo, Olmetec, PMCPA, olmesartan, pharma sales representative
Daiichi-Sankyo has been cleared of any wrongdoing in relation to the ABPI Code after one of its representatives was accused of giving misleading information to a medical centre.
In effect, the case was decided in the pharma manufacturer’s favour because the investigating PMCPA panel could not decide which of the two conflicting accounts of the incident was correct.
The complainant reported that a healthcare consortium was informed by one of its practice managers that the pharma sales rep – who was promoting hypertension treatment Olmetec (olmesartan) – had said the medicines management team was to be disbanded.
Not only was this incorrect, but such a statement could be construed as misleading GPs so they would prescribe the Daiichi-Sankyo drug, the complaint suggested.
Clauses 7.2 of the ABPI’s Code of Practice (dealing with misleading information) and 15.2 (which is concerned with reps’ ethical conduct) were therefore the likely areas around which an infringement would have been made.
The PMCPA said the complainant had not actually been involved in the conversation and the practice concerned wished to remain anonymous.
Daiichi-Sankyo was informed which healthcare consortium the complaint had come from and said only one rep’s call record matched the scant information provided.
The manufacturer said that this rep, accompanied by his manager, had in fact asked a practice manager whether the government White Paper, ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’, meant that primary care trusts would be disbanded.
The radical document, published in July, did indeed talk about abolishing England’s 152 PCTs along with the 10 regional Strategic Health Authorities by 2013.
The plans will also see primary care doctors come together in consortia to take charge of the NHS budget for mental health, hospital and community services, with full financial responsibility from April 2013.
Since this represents such a shake-up, the investigating panel expressed the view that it was “entirely foreseeable” that reps might discuss the White Paper with those they called upon.
With this in mind, it questioned why Daiichi-Sankyo’s primary care sales team was briefed on it only on 23 September – 10 weeks after the disputed conversation took place.
“On the balance of probabilities”, the panel decided the rep did discuss the implications of the White Paper with a practice manager – but could not say whether the rep actually said that the medicines management team would be disbanded.
Since the parties’ accounts of the incident differed, the panel ruled Daiichi-Sankyo was not in breach of the Code.
Adam Hill
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