Novartis fined for offering bribes
By Jung Min-ho
Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, has been fined 55.1 billion won ($49 million) and given a six-month suspension of insurance benefits on its nine medicines available here for allegedly bribing doctors.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Thursday it has decided to take the punitive measures against Novartis, which is charged with offering 2.59 billion won to doctors from January 2011 to January 2016 in return for more prescriptions of its drugs.
This move came after prosecutors indicted six Novartis executives on the charges last year. The trial is now underway.
The ministry decision means the nine medicines will remain expensive for the next six months without insurance reimbursement; thus, patients may have to seek other alternatives.
Glivec, the firm’s blockbuster cancer drug, is not included in the list due to concerns that patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) would not be able to find a proper alternative.
About 3,000 of 5,000 CML patients in Korea rely on the drug for treatment. After the issue came to the fore, they urged the ministry to find ways to penalize the firm without blocking patients’ access to the drug.
“We will continue to try hard to root out such practices in the pharmaceutical industry with strong measures,” the ministry said in a statement.
Novartis is one of the top-selling foreign pharmaceutical companies in Korea. Last year, the company made about 450 billion won revenue in the country, which is its 10th-largest market.