 "Pharma dept reprimands AbbVie Healthcare for unethical marketing practices")
Acting on an anonymous complaint, the government's department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) on Monday reprimanded AbbVie Healthcare India for violating ethical marketing practices by sponsoring the "extravagant pleasure trips" abroad of 30 doctors.
The department has asked the Central Bureau of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to evaluate the liabilities of the company and doctors. It requested the National Medical Commission (NMC) to take action against the doctors. The company and the doctors violated ethical marketing practices of the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP), it said. It is the first instance of a company being pulled up for breach of the code's marketing practices after its notification in March.
AbbVie Healthcare India, a subsidiary of US-based AbbVie Inc., was investigated for allegedly spending nearly Rs 1.91 crore on the travel tickets and hotel accommodation of health care professionals (HCP) “for extravagant pleasure trips under the guise of conferences” such as the Aesthetics and Anti-ageing World Congress 2024 in Paris and Monaco. The action violated the UCPMP, which regulates interactions between pharmaceutical companies and HCPs and marks foreign trips, gifts and inducements as unethical marketing.
According to an order dated December 23 by the DoP’s apex committee on pharmaceutical marketing practices, the company claimed the trips were connected to improve the HCPs' “knowledge” of anti-ageing products Botox and Juvederm.
The order said the company justified its action as common industry practice and claimed that it had a professional service agreement with HCPs to compensate them for their services.
Auditors of the apex committee rejected the company's defence. “The agreements entered into by AbbVie do not clarify why such trained HCPs need to be provided with foreign travel to gain knowledge about simple procedures in medical aesthetics, such as administration of Botox and Juvederm,” said the DoP.
Also Read
It added that AbbVie chose to reject considering remedial action by extending support to underprivileged patients receiving treatment in government hospitals for an amount equivalent to the violations computed by the DoP’s audit team.
The committee then issued a reprimand and asked the CBDT and the NMC to assess the violations.