Pfizer is investigating allegations that members of its sales force improperly promoted an AIDS medicine to physicians, a company spokesman said yesterday.
A sales representative has alleged salespeople were given unapproved training and marketing materials to try to revive sales of Viracept, a protease inhibitor approved by federal regulators in 1997.
The allegations were originally reported yesterday on Pharmalot.com, a Star-Ledger blog that focuses on the pharmaceutical industry.
Allegations over the marketing of Viracept come on the heels of claims Pfizer's sales representatives were instructed to begin promoting its HIV drug maraviroc before it received approval from federal regulators.
Pfizer said it has asked an outside law firm, Ropes & Gray of Boston, to conduct an investigation into reports it has received about the marketing of both medicines.
"We take any allegations about inappropriate marketing of our products seriously," Pfizer spokesman Bryant Haskins said yesterday.
Haskins would not discuss specific details about what was brought to the company's attention. "I don't think we would go into details of the allegations until we've looked into them," he said. "We have to investigate to see if there is any validity."
The allegations related to Viracept revolve around internal company policies and procedures, Haskins said. According to Pharmalot, some of the marketing material for the drug was never approved by Pfizer's internal review committee.
"We were given all sorts of materials to boost business," Pharmalot quoted the sales rep as saying. "You know a sales rep just doesn't wake up one morning and say, 'I'll use these unapproved studies or slides or whatever.'
"It has to come from somewhere, and we were told that our performance was based on whether we were able to use that material in the field."
The alleged marketing tactics used to push sales of Viracept may also violate Pfizer's Corporate Integrity Agreement, which it was required to forge with the Department of Health and Human Services in 2004.
The agreement, along with a $430 million penalty, was part of a criminal and civil settlement for illegally promoting an epilepsy drug called Neurontin for unapproved use as a bipolar mental disease treatment.
Source
Insider's view: A while ago Peter Rost referred to Big Pharma's CEOs as being the modern day robber barons.
Maybe, just maybe, we are seeing in The Pharma Blogosphere (TM - Sir John of the Mack) the rise of a band of chivalrous knights who are prepared to joust with these types.
A sales representative has alleged salespeople were given unapproved training and marketing materials to try to revive sales of Viracept, a protease inhibitor approved by federal regulators in 1997.
The allegations were originally reported yesterday on Pharmalot.com, a Star-Ledger blog that focuses on the pharmaceutical industry.
Allegations over the marketing of Viracept come on the heels of claims Pfizer's sales representatives were instructed to begin promoting its HIV drug maraviroc before it received approval from federal regulators.
Pfizer said it has asked an outside law firm, Ropes & Gray of Boston, to conduct an investigation into reports it has received about the marketing of both medicines.
"We take any allegations about inappropriate marketing of our products seriously," Pfizer spokesman Bryant Haskins said yesterday.
Haskins would not discuss specific details about what was brought to the company's attention. "I don't think we would go into details of the allegations until we've looked into them," he said. "We have to investigate to see if there is any validity."
The allegations related to Viracept revolve around internal company policies and procedures, Haskins said. According to Pharmalot, some of the marketing material for the drug was never approved by Pfizer's internal review committee.
"We were given all sorts of materials to boost business," Pharmalot quoted the sales rep as saying. "You know a sales rep just doesn't wake up one morning and say, 'I'll use these unapproved studies or slides or whatever.'
"It has to come from somewhere, and we were told that our performance was based on whether we were able to use that material in the field."
The alleged marketing tactics used to push sales of Viracept may also violate Pfizer's Corporate Integrity Agreement, which it was required to forge with the Department of Health and Human Services in 2004.
The agreement, along with a $430 million penalty, was part of a criminal and civil settlement for illegally promoting an epilepsy drug called Neurontin for unapproved use as a bipolar mental disease treatment.
Source
Insider's view: A while ago Peter Rost referred to Big Pharma's CEOs as being the modern day robber barons.
Maybe, just maybe, we are seeing in The Pharma Blogosphere (TM - Sir John of the Mack) the rise of a band of chivalrous knights who are prepared to joust with these types.
Arise, Sir Ed of Pharmalot!
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