Drug companies under siege

Drug companies under siege | Daily Tribune

There could be, offhand, some unethical considerations unearthed if and when the Senate inquiry comes full circle. This involves a drug firm alleged to have a significant number of doctors as its incorporators, managers, investors, and prescribers.

At least, insofar as the Senate is concerned, a looming conflict of interest could be a cause for concern. Ideally, though, this must first worry the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Health, and the Intellectual Property Office unless the issue has not yet been brought to their attention.

When the reputation of a pharmaceutical firm, in this case, Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc., is cast in a bad light, it might follow that other drug companies could be into it as well. Then, it makes sense that the Senate committee undertake a thorough and determined probe and, based on the findings, effect drastic measures to preclude other companies from committing the same.

There has been confirmation lately of fake or “falsified” drugs being sold in the market, the problem being a global reality but often framed as a “third world” concern even by the World Health Organization. Apparently, there are “analysts who estimate the global counterfeit market to be worth between US$200 and US$432 billion.” Even worse, it is said that “there is no universally accepted definition for a counterfeit medicine.”

This might drive home the point of a clear and present danger in the realm of health care delivery if doctors prescribe drugs for their patients sourced from pharmaceutical companies that they invariably manage, are a shareholder of, or have a clear business interest in. One cannot have an assurance of safety in the face of the fact that “counterfeit medicine trafficking has become one of the world’s fastest-growing criminal enterprises.”

As news accounts have it, Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc. is reportedly “giving incentives and support” to doctors who include in their generic prescriptions lifestyle (i.e. cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes) drugs and by so doing receive rebates, firm-sponsored foreign trips, and clinic equipment.

A quick profile of Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc. reveals its company core values of “integrity, sense of ownership, compassion, accountability, loyalty, excellence, unity, and professionalism” which its 300 employees live by. They proudly claim to be committed to “making more lives better.”

The public, in general, gives wide latitude to House and Senate inquiries (i.e. “in aid of legislation”). But when the Senate, for example, keeps its inquiry at bay, it would have irreversible consequences on the beleaguered drug firm and the physicians summoned for questioning.

Since the medicines prescribed by doctors affiliated with a pharmaceutical firm are presumably safe, at least insofar as they cannot be classified as “fake, falsified, or counterfeit,” it stands to reason that health care delivery, a patient’s life and safety, the efficacy of the drug prescribed are all in order.

If drug companies are influencing medical practitioners by bribing them — “buying” them — and as a consequence compromising the patients under their care, their acts violative of existing ethical norms, then the state has all the right to intervene.

It cannot be taken for granted that noble institutions are in place and contemplated policy reforms could only be attained if driven by empirical or evidence-based data to avoid the appearance of a “disconnect” between the regulator and the regulated, if the rule-making — in proverbial knee-jerk reaction — always trips up the entire policy process.

Time to up the ante, seriously so.