Astellas Pharma censured over advisory boards

Astellas has been the subject of ‘naming and shaming’ advertisements in three medical journals after advisory board meetings it ran fell foul of UK pharma’s self-regulatory Code of Practice.

The company was ruled to have breached five clauses of the ABPI Code including, most seriously, by discrediting and reducing confidence in the pharmaceutical industry, with its Mycamine (micafungin) advisory boards.

It was found to have been developing brand advocates for Mycamine under the guise of holding advisory boards at three pairs of meetings the company held in London, Birmingham and Edinburgh. These were attended by healthcare professionals, who were paid £1,000 each for their presence at the two meetings.

Code of Practice regulator the PMCPA deemed the pharma firm in breach for “paying health professionals to attend a series of advisory boards which were at least in part disguised promotion, and thus in effect giving what amounted to an inducement to prescribe, administer or recommend a medicine”.

For this, Astellas was ruled in breach of the following five clauses of the Code:

• Clause 2 - Bringing discredit upon and reducing confidence in the pharmaceutical  industry

• Clause 9.1 - Failing to maintain high standards

• Clause 12.1 - Organising an activity that was in part disguised promotion

• Clause 18.1 - Paying a fee to attend a promotional event which was, in effect, an inducement to prescribe, administer or recommend a medicine

• Clause 20 - Failing to comply with the requirements relating to consultants.

The full case report (Case AUTH/2290/12/09) was published in the PMCPA May Code of Practice Review and is available here.

It was the breach of Clause 2 of the Code that led to the medical press advertisements about the case, and they appeared in both the British Medical Journal and the Pharmaceutical Journal on 3 July and in the Nursing Standard on 7 July.

This is the second such breach of the Code of Practice this year. In April, Solvay, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble were subject to the same naming and shaming practice in advertisements in the medical press, with Solvay being public reprimanded after it gave cheques to GPs to promote its products.

Last week a series of revisions to the Code of Practice were proposed. The changes are planned to come into effect in 2011 and will focus on the way pharma companies should approach marketing themselves to doctors and is set to get tougher on all types of ‘promotional aides’.

Ben Adams