European court backs prescribing incentives
pharmafile | May 7, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | prescribing incentives
Payments to persuade UK doctors to prescribe generics have been backed by a European court, thwarting pharma attempts to have them outlawed.
The ‘prescribing incentive’ payments encourage doctors to switch patients from a branded medicine to a generic equivalent, but the UK industry association the ABPI claims they contravene EU law.
The ABPI first mounted its legal challenge in 2007 through the English court system, but the battle has since switched to the European stage.
The industry association cites a European law which bans pharma companies paying doctors incentives to prescribe their drugs, and reasoned that the same rule should apply to governments.
But the European Court of Justice has now ruled that the payments are not illegal. It points out that the law was designed to prevent commercial gain arising from payments, and that the non-commercial gain arose from government payments.
It also ruled that the schemes do not ‘prejudice the objectivity’ of prescribing doctors.
The case was sparked by pharma industry anger over prescribing incentives, which have become increasingly common in England’s primary care trusts in recent years. In particular, schemes encouraged doctors to switch patients from branded statins, such as Pfizer’s Lipitor, to generically available statins such as simvastatin.
The ABPI said it was disappointed by the ruling, particularly as it contradicted an earlier ruling by one of the EU’s senior legal heads, Advocate-General Jaaskinen in February this year.
In a statement, the association said: “The ABPI believes it is important that patients can have total confidence that when their doctor is making prescribing decisions those decisions are, and are seen to be, completely independent of personal financial considerations. The ECJ interpretation of the legislation risks this being put in doubt.”
The ABPI says it will now consider the implications of the judgment in relation to its case which is proceeding in the High Court.
The ruling was welcomed by the British generics association the BGMA. Its director Warwick Smith said: “The Association has always taken the view that it is for prescribers to decide which medicine their patients should receive, but that it is in the interests of all patients and the NHS as a whole that they should take account of the cost and cost-effectiveness of different medicines. The ECJ’s judgement has endorsed this view. We also welcome the ECJ’s statement that there are no patient health concerns since all medicines are constantly reviewed by the regulators.”
The Court nevertheless did rule that public authorities must demonstrate to the pharma industry that the scheme is “based on objective criteria and that there is no discrimination between national medicinal products and those from other Member States.”
It also said the details of the scheme must be made public, including evaluations which establish the therapeutic equivalence of the drugs covered by the prescribing schemes.
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