My platform customer has a well-known pharmaceutical company referred to as K company. In the process of drug sales, the company paid a sponsorship fee of RMB 57,095 in a hospital in Shanghai in August 2015. During the period, the hospital purchased the total value of medicines from K Company for RMB 772,536.25.
According to Article 89 of the Drug Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, Company K was ordered to stop the illegal act and made an administrative penalty decision of confiscation of illegal income of 772,536.25 yuan and a fine of 100,000 yuan.
Compliance advice
Pharmaceutical companies should do the following compliance work on the basis of doing a good job of reviewing the authenticity of academic conferences and ensuring that conference sponsorships are not linked to product sales, in combination with different sponsorship models:
1. Sponsoring hospitals or associations to sponsor compliance proposals for academic conferences
(1) The nature of the pre-examination review meeting to ensure that the meeting is an academic meeting related to medical treatment technology.
(2) Avoid sponsoring the internal business departments, functional departments or internal organizations of the hospital.
(3) Sign a written agreement to clarify that the sponsorship funds can only be used for the meeting itself to ensure that the funds are earmarked.
(4) The sponsorship fund must be “public to public”, and the recipient unit will issue a unified bill for the charity donation or a conference sponsored invoice to avoid giving the sponsorship money to an individual or a department.
2. Sponsoring doctors to participate in third-party meetings or corporate self-sponsored academic conferences
(1) Keep the materials that the doctor actually participated in. Pay attention to the invitation letter, meeting notice, meeting agenda, registration fee for the participating doctors, on-site check-in, on-site photos, PPT and other meeting materials to prove the authenticity of the academic conference itself and the participation of doctors.
(2) Reasonably arrange the participation schedule and select the venue for the conference. When sponsoring doctors to attend third-party meetings, the schedule of travel should be appropriate and compact. Try to avoid premature arrival before the meeting or stay too long after the meeting; the itinerary route avoids abnormal travel through the tourist city or attractions, and stays longer. It is not appropriate for the enterprise to set up a meeting place to choose the location of the meeting in the scenic area.
(3) Avoid unrelated expenses. In addition to normal transportation, accommodation, catering, and registration fees, expenses such as attraction tickets, tour guide service fees, tour guide overtime pay, and unreasonable miscellaneous expenses are not included in the expenses.
(4) Sponsorship orientation should not be clear. You should not sign a sponsorship agreement with your doctor, or sign a sponsorship agreement with the hospital that is too specific.
(5) Sponsorship fee standards are avoided too high. Sponsoring doctors to participate in third-party meetings. If the organizer has a unified arrangement for accommodation and catering, the arrangement of the organizer shall prevail. It is not appropriate to provide a significantly higher price accommodation arrangement; the company shall hold a meeting or a third-party conference organizer. When there is no arrangement for accommodation and catering, pay attention to controlling the per capita consumption within a reasonable range; avoid the first class and first class in terms of transportation expenses.
6. Fahui Enterprise Legal Service Platform Suggestions:
The state and industry continue to crack down on corruption. Not only pharmaceutical companies, but other companies in the sales process or in the pursuit of projects also need to do a good job of corporate internal control compliance, especially the risk that we believe will incur commercial bribery.
