Roche defends buying lavish meals for doctors at Sydney's restaurants

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7560.169

BMJ 2006;333:169 (22 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7560.169

News

Roche defends buying lavish meals for doctors at Sydney's restaurants

Ray Moynihan

Byron Bay, Australia

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Swiss drug giant Roche has been accused of breaching thepharmaceutical industry's code of conduct by providing lavishmeals to doctors at several of Australia's leading restaurants.

Roche took 18 doctors to the Aria restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour for dinner at £90 a head

Credit: THE ARIA RESTAURANT

The dinners were part of a Roche sponsored scientific symposiumon haematology-oncology treatments, which included the company'stop selling pharmaceutical, rituximab (MabThera), which hasannual sales of more than SFr4bn (£1.8bn; ${euro}$ 2.6bn; $3.2bn).

According to documents obtained by the BMJ, Roche spent morethan $A65000 (£27 000; ${euro}$ 39 000; $49 000) on one meal foralmost 300 people at the Guillaume at Bennelong restaurant,in the Sydney Opera House in July 2005.

With spectacular views over Sydney harbour, the restaurant isconsidered one of Australia's best, boasting the "degustationmenu" with multiple courses and fine wines, worth $A200 a head.. . . [Full text of this article]

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