AS369 - PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES' FINANCING OF TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY FOR COURSES, CONVENTIONS, MEETINGS AND VISITS TO COMPANY LABORATORIES AND RESEARCH CENTRES
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
PHARMACEUTICALS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY TELLS GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT DOCTORS' PRESCRIPTIONS SHOULD ALSO INDICATE LOWER-COST GENERIC DRUGS
The aim is to reduce conflicts of interest in the medical profession and provide savings for families and the National Health System
Change the pharmaceutical regulations to oblige doctors to prescribe the active ingredient or to indicate on the prescription that patients have the option of purchasing a generic drug at a lower cost in place of the one prescribed. This was the request of the Italian Competition Authority in a submission to the Government and Parliament approved at the Authority's meeting on 9 November 2006.
In the Authority's view, this measure could reduce the effects of conflict of interest in the medical profession due to the pharmaceutical manufacturers' financing of travel and hospitality for courses, conventions, meetings and visits to company laboratories and research centres. It would also foster competition between brands and encourage the use of generic drugs or, at any rate, the least expensive ones, resulting in reduced expenditure on prescription medicines by families and the National Health System.
Nonetheless, the Authority believes the doctor should always have the option of specifying, for clinical reasons, that a particular medicine may not be replaced by any other.
The submission emphasizes that hospitality offered to doctors by the pharmaceutical industry represents a significant, but not the only, aspect of conflict of interest in the medical profession. This is a phenomenon which should be placed under observation and should be regulated in order to preclude any distortion of free competition.
In a more general sense, conflict of interest in the medical profession touches on a wide-ranging network of relations among those involved in scientific research, pharmacology, prevention and treatment, as well as the pharmaceutical industry. The solution to the problem needs to be sought first of all in the realm of ethics and in an increase in public funding for scientific research.
As far as competition is concerned, conflicts of interest may mean the market is skewed in favour of those companies that spend most lavishly on conventions.
Measures aimed at promoting competition among suppliers and comparisons between equivalent products, then, are certainly preferable to interventions that induce companies to make agreed cuts in spending on travel and hospitality for doctors; at least until such time as public funding in this sector meets the requirements.
Rome, 11 November 2006