Just when you thought it was safe to put your faith in medicine again comes another bombshell for British pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline.
Still shaking off the putrid stench of the $3 billion fine in America and the $483 million fine in China, Glaxo now find themselves at the centre of yet more corruption, this time in Romania.
The news agency Reuters are reporting that they have had access to emails sent in to top GSK management that claim ...
- GSK paid Romanian doctors hundreds, and in one cases thousands, of euros between 2009 and 2012 for prescribing its medicines, including prostate treatments Avodart and Duodart and Parkinson's disease drug Requip.
- GSK paid for speaking engagements, but in three out of six cases, including the most highly paid one, they did not give any speech. The other three medics gave only one speech each, despite receiving multiple payments.
- GSK also provided doctors with many international trips and made payments to them under the guise of participation in advisory boards.
It's not looking good for Glaxo after the person who emailed the company has said that he/she will pass on evidence to both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which are investigating GSK for possible breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Full story here.
More coming soon.
Bob Fiddaman.
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