Patient Info: An "Insult" From Govts To Industry

The public-health arguments put forward by "our governing bodies" inorder to justify curbs on the product information which the pharmaceutical industry is allowed to provide for patients are unacceptable and unjustified, Kurt Briner, chief executive of Sanofi Pharma in France, told Management Centre Europe's annual industry meeting in Paris, France, this month (see also Marketletter June 9).

They often suggest the industry has "shady motives," he said. They believe its only concern is commercial profit, and that its "bottom-line mentality" pushes it to sell as much as possible, even if this means disguising the truth by not disclosing the negative aspects of its products.

Such views are "an insult to our industry," and "an expression of utter contempt for the numerous legal obligations by which we are bound by our ethical practice, the specific regulations governing medication and, more generally, the legislation on misleading advertising." On top of this, "there is the extreme vigilance of the international scientific community, which never loses any time in exercising its right to make any criticism it feels necessary."