BMJ 2003;326:413 ( 22 February )

News

Italian police investigate GSK Italy for bribery

Fabio Turone, Milan
The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The top management of the Italian branch of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is under investigation together with more than 2900 physicians, most of whom are general practitioners.

Based on the preliminary conclusions of an inquiry by police, who collected more than 13000 hours of phone conversations in 15 Italian regions and seized several computers, 72 people have been charged with corruption (37 employees of GSK Italy and 35 physicians and health service managers).

In addition, 80 sales representatives and managers are accused of illicitly compensating doctors for agreeing to prescribe or recommend to colleagues the company's products instead of the generic equivalents or analogues made by other companies.

The investigation started last June in Verona when the police, during a routine examination, found in the GSK's yearly budget the amount of 100m (£67m; $108m) for "medical promotion" and "other promotion." Since the only forms of self promotion that pharmaceutical companies are allowed to use are limited to gadgets . . . [Full text of this article]
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This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Turone, F. (2004). Italian doctors face criminal allegations over bribes. BMJ 328: 1333-1333 [Full text]  
  • Moynihan, R. (2003). Who pays for the pizza? Redefining the relationships between doctors and drug companies. 1: Entanglement. BMJ 326: 1189-1192 [Full text]  
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