South Korea fines Novartis over kickbacks scandal
pharmafile | March 2, 2017 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Kickback, Novartis, south korea
South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has fined Novartis 200 million won ($174,936) over the payment of kickbacks to doctors. The case relates to the scandal that erupted in August of last year, having been revealed that certain Novartis officials had paid kickbacks to doctors through ‘attendance fees’ to events.
The fine is against 30 drug items within Novartis’ portfolio, whilst 12 drugs will also be banned from sales for three months.
The case brought charges against six Novartis executives for a total of $2 million in fees paid out to doctors in return for prescribing Novartis’ medications. 15 doctors were indicted as part of the case whilst the heads of five medical journals were also involved. The events took place from January 2011 until the case was finally exposed in 2016.
Once the scandal broke, the Seoul offices of Novartis were raided for evidence. It was discovered that the South Korean offices had funded academic events organised by medical journals and then paid doctors to attend such events, thereby circumventing laws preventing money directly changing hands in return for the prescription of a company’s products.
Novartis released a statement at the time to say that the practices were: “inconsistent with our culture and the expectations society has for us…Some associates supported travel to overseas congresses for some healthcare practitioners in a way that did not fully comply with self-regulation standards”.
It is not the first time that the Swiss drugmaker has come a cropper of legal authorities investigating sales practices. Only last month, a case was brought to light by the attempted suicide of a Greek Novartis official in relation to a bribery case in the country. Beyond this, there were also bribery cases brought in China and in Turkey last year.
Ben Hargreaves
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