Medicines Australia Code of Conduct: breaches

Medicines Australia has a Code of Conduct to guide the promotion of prescription drugs by pharmaceutical companies in Australia. A new edition of the Code has recently been approved.¹ Complaints are considered by the Code of Conduct Committee and the results are published in its annual report. The report for 2006-07 is available on the Medicines Australia website.²

This year's report contains detailed information about 41 complaints. In fourteen cases no breach of the Code was found. Table 1 shows the 27 complaints in which at least one breach of the Code was found. As usual, most of the complaints were made by rival pharmaceutical companies, but 12 were made by health professionals.

Most of the breaches were for using misleading information in promotional material. Some of the larger fines were imposed on companies that had allowed the public to be exposed to their promotions. Two complaints related to a company which sponsored the national conference of a patient support group. An article, originally drafted for health professionals, but published in Reader's Digest, clearly breached the Code. Another breach, identified by several complaints, was offering a 'money-back guarantee' to patients being treated for erectile dysfunction.

The information in the report reveals some of the sophisticated strategies companies can use. One company had used a public relations consultant to manage a campaign about a medicine which had yet to be approved in Australia. This included sponsoring a journalist to attend an overseas conference about the drug. Issuing a media release on an unapproved drug was considered to be promotional activity which breached the Code.

The Committee had to grapple with what constitutes excessive hospitality. One company was fined for providing a function that was not 'simple or modest', while a function at the Crown Towers in Melbourne was ruled to be 'not extravagant'. Perhaps the new requirement for companies to disclose the cost of their promotional functions will help the Code of Conduct Committee decide what is appropriate.