Pfizer, the largest producer of drugs in the world by sales, will pay $60 million to U.S. authorities to stop a federal investigation on bribery and various “gifts” to doctors in China and Croatia to prescribe Pfizer products. Pfizer has been accused of bribing doctors, hospital administrators and officials of regulatory authorities in several European and Asian countries to promote drugs produced by the company, according to WSJ.com.
U.S. authorities found evidence that the pharmaceutical group rewarded the most “efficient” doctors in China with mobile phones or tea sets and Croatian doctors received cash and traveled abroad on company money, according to documents filed in court, quoted by the Wall Street Journal online edition. U.S. investigators have also said that several divisions of Pfizer tried to hide irregularities by recording these payments as legitimate expenses such as employee training, travel expenses or entertainment.
The company struck a deal with authorities, agreeing to pay a fine of $15 million and to return illicit profits. Agreement does not imply acceptance or rejection of charges. Pfizer noted in a statement that the allegations do not indicate that U.S. management would have known of the unlawful practices in other countries or that such tactics would have been approved. The group also states that some charges concern the activity of the Wyeth company before it was bought by Pfizer in 2009.
Representatives of Pfizer and the U.S. Justice Department said that pharmaceutical group has been working with the U.S. government since 2004, reporting irregularities by both its employees and pharmaceutical industry marketing practices internationally. Department of Justice said that Pfizer has received leniency for cooperating in several investigations against companies and individuals.
Another pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson paid $70 million under an agreement signed last year with the U.S. authorities to settle a similar investigation. Johnson & Johnson also cooperate with the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission in several investigations on corruption practices in the marketing of drugs that pharmaceutical companies are involved internationally.
At least eight major companies in the pharmaceutical sector are the object of such investigations, including GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Merck, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Pfizer had revenues of $67.4 billion in 2011, of which $40.5 billion outside the United States.
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