Schering-Plough Past "Marketing" Practices Under Investigation

Before its new CEO Fred Hassan arrived, drug maker Schering-Plough seems to have had an interesting way of getting business. It would bribe doctors to prescribe its drugs, and if they gave their patients a competitor's medication, the money pipeline was shut off. What would Hippocrates say?

Of particular note are the interviews with around 20 doctors in the Boston area, who say they received unsolicited checks. In return, the physicians were to prescribe Schering-Plough's treatment for hepatitis C above other treatments. Also, there are allegations that the company-sponsored clinical trials that required the doctors to do little or no work in exchange for a big payment.

Schering-Plough is not the only drug company (they prefer "pharmaceutical" company, but they sell drugs just as surely as Pablo Escobar did -- but they have government permission to do so) under investigation. SEC filings show that Wyeth, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb have federal subpoenas to answer.

The dispensing of drugs is rightly a regulated business, but it appears that the ethical attitudes of some of the marketing people are lacking. Yet, why is this so? Surely, it is the job of a profit-making entity to sell products, and if commissions need to be paid (bribe is such an ugly word), then, commissions should be paid.

Except that the health of a human being is actually too important to leave to market forces. America has already admitted that the market needs regulation in keeping Mr. Escobar's product off the market while making sure Schering-Plough's is available under prescription. It is just a matter of where the line gets drawn. And intermediation is needed to halt the plunder of America's sick, who already find it cheaper to import drugs from Canada than to buy the domestic brand.

Doctors and patients need to band together to create real buying clout. A single buyer for all of America's drug needs could demand volume discounts -- and a few thousand dollars of corruption here and there could make no difference. If that is too much like socialism, then let the number be five or six buyers, and make the drug companies compete on price. At least until American drugs are as inexpensive as Canadian medicines.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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