South Korea: Novartis faces further prosecution on bribery

South Korea’s antitrust regulator said it would fine Novartis’ local unit 500 million won ($444,089 USD) for alleged unfair promotions, in another setback for the Swiss drugmaker that was fined earlier this year over kickbacks to doctors.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission added in a statement on Thursday that it would file a complaint against the company with prosecutors. It said that Novartis Korea had spent 7.6 billion won to fund overseas trips by medical practitioners to attend academic conferences from 2011 to 2016.

Novartis Korea selected recipients for the funding based on their prescription of the company’s drugs, or anticipated prescriptions of the drugs, the regulator said.

“They have used support for overseas academic congresses as unfair promotional means,” the regulator said.

Under South Korea’s fair trade rules, a drug maker is not allowed to provide “direct support” to individuals participating in academic congresses, although a company can donate funds to industry associations to support them.

“Based on our own investigation, we found that some overseas congress trips by healthcare professionals were funded in a way that did not fully comply with industry self-regulation standards. This conduct was also in violation of our policies and inconsistent with our culture,” Novartis said.

Full Content: Korea Times

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