Bulletins

Date advertisements appeared: 27 February 2009

Roche Products Limited and Bayer Schering Pharma have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry (2006 edition) and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.

Roche Products Limited breached the Code for a patient adherence and incentive scheme where Roche provided vouchers to young patients as an incentive to use their medicine and thereby encouraged patients to ask their health professional for a specific prescription only medicine.

16 February, 2009

Roche Products Limited has been reinstated to membership of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) following the company’s suspension from 14 July 2008.

As companies are aware, the revised Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme requires prices of medicines to be reduced with effect from 1 February 2009 so as to achieve an overall reduction for a company of 3.9%.

It is in the interest of advertisers to indicate the new lower prices on promotional material as soon as possible. In the period 1 February to 30 April 2009, however, promotional material will not be considered to be in breach of the Code if it still carries the previous higher price.

Date advertisements appeared: 29 November 2008
Takeda Pharmaceuticals Europe Limited and Eli Lilly and Company Limited have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.

It has been drawn to the PMCPA’s attention that some companies believe that there is a three month grace period in which to update prescribing information to reflect changes to the summary of product characteristics (SPC) and that during that period the provision of the updated SPC with promotional material bearing outdated prescribing information will regularise the position. Neither of these propositions is true.

28 November 2008

Takeda Europe and Eli Lilly are the subjects of advertisements in the medical, pharmaceutical and nursing press which highlight breaches of The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry.

To mark 50 years of self regulation of the promotion of prescription medicines, a Question Time style debate entitled 'The ABPI Code: Still nifty at fifty?' took place at the Royal College of Physicians on the evening of 2 October 2008. The debate, chaired by John Humphrys, examined the impact that the ABPI Code has had on relationships between the industry and health professionals, how these interactions have changed over the past 50 years and where we go from here.

The panel for the debate was made up of:

26 September 2008

Employees from across the pharmaceutical industry in the UK will unite during Code Awareness Week – 29 September- 3 October 2008 – to talk to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other stakeholders about how the industry can work ethically with the NHS in accordance with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Companies may illustrate their promotional material with relevant patient case studies but everything which the company states, or the patient states, about the disease or response to treatment will be subject to the Code. Particular attention must be paid to Clauses 3.2 and 7. Patients chosen must be typical in terms of their condition and response to therapy; for example, those at the severe end of the disease spectrum with an outstanding response to treatment should therefore not be chosen.

Date advertisements appeared: 30 August 2008 

Roche Products Limited has breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.