The title of today’s article could make some of the readers uncomfortable and angry, just as what I experienced while writing the same, being a long time follower and student of the pharmaceutical industry, both global and local.
Ethical business conduct and value standards, especially of medium, large to very large pharmaceutical corporations both in India and across the world are coming increasingly under stakeholders’ scrutiny, besides being severely criticized for non-compliance in many instances by the regulators, judiciary and public at large. We shall find many such examples over a long period of time even from within our own land.
There is no global consensus, as yet, on what is ethically and morally acceptable ‘Business Ethics and Values’ across the world, although there are some very strong common parameters that can be globally followed.
In many companies’ websites such standards are also available in their minutest details. Unfortunately, even some of those companies are also being reportedly held guilty for blatant violations of their own set standards of ethics and compliance.
This trend could prompt one to believe, sincere attempts are still lacking to ensure effective implementation of such well drafted ‘Business Ethics and Values’ in country-specific ways by many of these companies.
The most challenging obstacle to overcome in this area by the corporates, I reckon, would still remain ‘walking the talk’, owning the responsibility and taking sustainable remedial measures, at least when these violations are conclusively established followed by penal actions.
A new book with graphic details:
In this context, ‘The Economist’ in its September 29, 2012 reviewed a book titled ‘Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients’, written by Ben Goldacre, a British doctor and science writer. According to Amazon the book is due to be released on January 8, 2013.
In this book the author describes incidences of routine corruption in the healthcare system and brings out to the fore citing details of some of the following areas, how patients’ interests are being continuously and blatantly compromised by many pharmaceutical companies unabated, just for commercial gain:
- Pharmaceutical companies bury clinical trials which show bad results for a drug and publish only those that show a benefit.
- The trials are often run on small numbers of unrepresentative patients, and the statistical analyses are massaged to give as rosy a picture as possible.
- Entire clinical trials are run not as trials at all, but as ‘under-the-counter advertising campaigns’ designed to persuade doctors to prescribe a company’s drug.
Dr. Ben Goldacre does not spare the drug regulators also as he writes, ‘drug regulators, who do get access to some of the hidden results, often guard them jealously, even from academic researchers, seeming to serve the interests of the firms whose products they are supposed to police.’
The author also writes that ‘many studies published in reputed medical journals are written by the commercial ghostwriters, who are paid by the pharmaceutical companies and are not written by those whose names appear as the author of those studies. He laments that based on such clinical trial reports blitzkrieg expensive marketing campaigns are conducted to influence doctors prescribing such drugs.
None of the above instances is unreported in India, may be in forms which are many shades worse than what has been described by Dr. Ben Goldacre in his above book.
‘The Economist’ recommends that ‘this is a book that deserves to be widely read, because anyone who does read it cannot help feeling both uncomfortable and angry’.
India can’t delay tightening its belt any further:
The concerns of Dr. Ben Goldacre are also being expressed in India quite vocally, almost in all the areas as mentioned above. Thus India needs to tighten its regulatory systems and ensure proper implementation of all its policies, and if required framing some new ones, so that the country can come out of this quagmire which severely hurts the patients’ interests at large.
Among many others, two critical areas where such alleged corporate malpractices are being continuously reported are as follows:
I. Clinical Trials
II. Marketing Practices
I. Ethical concerns over Clinical Trial in India are not getting mitigated:
Clinical trial system still remains a critical area of concern in India. The Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO) in an article titled, “Clinical trials in India: ethical concerns” reported as follows:
“Drug companies are drawn to India for several reasons, including a technically competent workforce, patient availability, low costs and a friendly drug-control system. While good news for India’s economy, the booming clinical trial industry is raising concerns because of a lack of regulation of private trials and the uneven application of requirements for informed consent and proper ethics review.”
Because of this reason, on October 8, 2012 the Supreme Court reportedly asked the government to provide details of clinical trials being conducted across the country, which will include drug side effects and clinical trial related deaths, in which case compensation, if any, paid to the victims or to their family members.
This direction came from the apex court of the country while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) alleging Indian citizens are being used as guinea pigs during clinical trials by the pharmaceutical companies all over the country, mainly due to lack of informed consent of the enrolled patients and thereafter short changing their interest citing various reasons.
Clinical-trials process of the country is now, therefore, under intense scrutiny of the government, NGOs and also of the judiciary after a number of scandals focusing on malpractices, somewhat similar to what Dr. Ben Goldacre has highlighted in his book, as mentioned above. These series of events have recently prompted the regulators to come out with proposals of reforms in this important area, for all concerned.
The Parliament intervened:
Recently the department related ‘Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC)’ on Health and Family Welfare presented its 59th Report on the functioning of the Indian Drug Regulator – the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) in both the houses of the Parliament on May 08, 2012.
The PSC in its report made, the following critical findings, besides others:
- “A total of 31 new drugs were approved in the period January 2008 to October 2010 without conducting clinical trials on Indian patients.
- Thirteen drugs scrutinized by the panel are not allowed to be sold in the United States, Canada, Britain, European Union and Australia.
- Sufficient evidence is available on record to conclude that there is collusive nexus between drug manufacturers, some functionaries of CDSCO and some medical experts.
- Due to the sensitive nature of clinical trials in which foreign companies are involved in a big way and a wide spectrum of ethical issues and legal angles, different aspects of clinical trials need a thorough and in-depth review.”
Regulators woke-up:
In response to the prevailing conundrum, ‘The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’ of the Government of India issued a draft notification on 17th July, 2012 seeking stakeholders’ views on the ‘Permission to conduct Clinical Trial’.
The draft notification says that the licensing authority only after being satisfied with the adequacy of the data submitted by the applicant in support of proposed clinical trial, shall issue permission to conduct clinical trial, subject to compliance of specified stringent conditions.
However, some experts do apprehend that such stringent system could give rise to significant escalation in the costs of clinical trials for the pharmaceutical players.
Similarly to assess right compensation for clinical trial related injuries or deaths following parameters were mooted in the document:
- Age of the deceased
- Income of the deceased
- Seriousness and severity of the disease, the subject was suffering at the time of his/her participation into the trial.
- Percentage of permanent disability.
II. Ethical concerns on marketing malpractices in India:
This issue has no longer remained a global concern. Frequent reports by Indian media have already triggered a raging debate in the country on the subject, involving even the Government and also the Parliament. It has been reported that a related case is now pending with the Supreme Court for hearing in not too distant future.
In 2010, ‘The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health’ expressed its deep concern that “the evil practice” of inducement of doctors continued because the Medical Council of India (MCI) had no jurisdiction over the pharma industry and it could not enforce the code of ethics on it.’
It was widely reported that the letter of the Congress Member of Parliament, Dr. Jyoti Mirdha to the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, attaching a bunch of photocopies of the air tickets to claim that ‘doctors and their families were beating the scorching Indian summer with a trip to England and Scotland, courtesy a pharmaceutical company’, compelled the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to initiate inquiry and action on the subject.
The letter had claimed that as many as 30 family members of 11 doctors from all over India enjoyed the hospitality of the pharmaceutical company.
In addition Dr. Mirdha reportedly wrote to the PMO that “The malpractice did not come to an end because while medical profession (recipients of incentives) is subjected to a mandatory code, there is no corresponding obligation on the part of the healthcare industry (givers of incentives). Result: Ingenious methods have been found to flout the code.”
The report also indicated at that time that the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) is trying to involve the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance to explore the possibilities in devising methods to link the money trail to offending companies and deny the tax incentives.
Incidences of such alleged malpractices related to financial relationship between the pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession are unfolding reasonably faster now. All these issues are getting increasingly dragged into the public debate where government can no longer play the role of a mere bystander.
Taking the first step closer to that direction, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), which is a part of Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance has now decided to disallow expenses on all ‘freebies’ to Doctors by the Pharmaceutical Companies in India.
A circular dated August 1, 2012 of the CBDT that the any expenses incurred by the pharmaceutical companies on gifts and other ‘freebies’ given to the doctors will no longer be allowed as business expenses.
Conclusion:
Statistics of compliance to ‘The Codes of Business Ethics & Corporate Values’ are important to know, but demonstrable qualitative changes in the ethics and value standards of an organization should always be the most important goal to drive any business corporation, the pharmaceutical industry being no exception.
The need to formulate ‘Codes of Business Ethics & Values’ and even more importantly their compliance are gradually gaining importance and relevance in the globalized business environment.
However, quite in conflict with the above initiative, at the same time, many pharmaceutical corporations across the world are being increasingly forced to come to terms with the heavy costs and consequences of ‘unethical behavior and business practices’ by the respective governments and judiciary. Unfortunately the Juggernaut still keeps moving, perhaps arising out of intense pressure for corporate business performance.
I am not quite sure though, whether such an expectation for ‘Corporate Ethics and Values’ is ‘utopian’ for the pharmaceutical industry or can be translated into reality with some amount of sincere efforts and commitment. However, if it does not happen, sooner than later, the ‘Bad Pharma’ image of the pharmaceutical industry across the world, as enunciated by Dr. Ben Goldacre in his book, will continue to linger inviting increasingly fierce public wrath along with stringent government regulatory controls and judicial interventions.
By: Tapan J Ray
Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.