Good morning, everyone, and how are you today? We are doing reasonably well, thank you, given an especially busy week. But this is to be expected in a busy world, yes? So please join us as we cope by quaffing yet another cup of stimulation. Remember, a prescription is not required. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits to help you along. We hope you have a smashing day and do drop us a line when something fascinating occurs …
Federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation into whether Valeant Pharmaceuticals defrauded insurers by hiding its relationship with Philidor Rx Services, a pharmacy that was used to boost prescriptions of its medicines, the Wall Street Journal reports. At issue is whether insurers thought Philidor was neutral rather actively promoting Valeant drugs. Valeant had acquired an option to buy Philidor, but did not disclose that for many months and only acknowledged the relationship after this report.
In its quest to win customers in India, some Abbott Laboratories managers instructed employees to pursue sales at virtually any cost, the New York Times reports. But this was allegedly done in violation of Indian law, professional medical standards, and the company’s own ethics guidelines. Last month, Ashish Awasthi, 35, was found dead on a railway track and a note recovered from him blamed the company and pressure to hit sales targets for his death.
About the Author Reprints
When I worked at Abbott the sales guys who were the most successful were the creative ones. There was one guy who was the most successful salesman of our estrogen product Ogen in the plains states. He used to carry dozens of airplane size gin bottles in his sample case. At the end of his pitch to the doc he would pull out a bottle from his case and plant it squarely in front of the doc. Relying on word association his parting words were “Doc- remember GIN–OGIN”.
Probably didn’t pass the conduct code back then either, but the difference was nobody cared.