The government last night promised to crack down on companies deemed guilty of breaching drug advertising and promotion rules, warning that "breaches of trust" would not be tolerated.
Its Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will today announce that three companies involved in wholesale supply - Nucare, Numark and AAH Pharmaceuticals - have withdrawn or changed inducement schemes.
The schemes offered benefits to pharmacists in return for buying medicinal products from certain suppliers. Pharmacists could collect "points" that would later be redeemable as share discounts or exchanged for travel or holidays. The companies denied the schemes infringed the rules.
The health minister, Lord Warner, said last night that patients needed to be sure health professionals had chosen medicines based on clinical suitability and value for money, rather than inducements.
Government guidance suggests items worth a few pounds - such as pens, notepads, inexpensive computer accessories or coffee mugs - are acceptable, but more costly goods are not.
There has been mounting concern among consumer and watchdog groups that authorities are failing to police the guidelines. The Guardian yesterday revealed that GlaxoSmithKline had been ordered to withdraw a specially written Mr Men children's book because it included material promoting its products.
The MHRA believes the three schemes broke advertising regulations by offering benefits "neither inexpensive nor relevant to the practice of medicine or pharmacy".
Lord Warner said the schemes were a serious breach of trust. "Supplier companies are able to compete effectively by means of price, service or range of products provided, and must not resort to other inducements to purchase."
David Wood, the chief executive of Numark, a company that supports nearly 1,600 independently owned pharmacies and is 85% owned by them, denied it had broken the rules. Its scheme offered pharmacies points for dealing with approved wholesalers that might have led to discounts on shares if the company was ever quoted on the stock market.
"We did not want to have a battle with the MHRA", he said. The company "had no intention of influencing prescribing or the recommendation of brands at consumer level". The benefits would have helped the pharmacy businesses, rather than individual pharmacists.
Nucare also offered points for possible redemption through share discounts if the company was quoted. The managing director, Mahesh Shah, said only about half its 1,200 member pharmacies had signed up. The company had been trying to improve services offered by independent businesses, rewarding them for using approved suppliers, improving in-shop displays and providing consultation areas, he said, adding: "There was never any danger a member of the public would be forced to take one product over another."
AAH offered points for travel under its scheme, which it changed nearly a year ago to drop the link to purchasing "own brand" products. But it said the MHRA was allowing an amended scheme, which related to brand image in pharmacies, includinguniforms and displays, to continue. The average value of the scheme before it was changed was about £2.70 a pharmacy.
Mandeep Mudhar, the director of marketing at AAH, said the reward, which could be redeemed against holidays such as a trip on the Orient Express, had been "minimal".
Alasdair Breckenridge, the chairman of the MHRA, said the agency "rigorously investigates any activities which seek to persuade health professionals to prescribe, purchase or supply medicines by means of inducements. We will continue to monitor this area closely."
It is an offence for health professionals to accept a gift, financial advantage, benefit in kind, hospitality or sponsorship prohibited by the regulations.
