Bell-Kenz Pharma admits giving incentives to doctors

MANILA, Philippines – Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc. admitted on Tuesday to “giving incentives” to some of its doctor partners but denied allegations of involvement in so-called “multi-level marketing schemes” or MLMs.

The firm’s chairperson and chief executive officer Luis Raymond Go disclosed this himself during a hearing of the Senate panel on health and demography.

READ: Bell-Kenz Pharma executive appears before Senate probe 

“We are giving incentives and…support to our doctors for them to include us as a brand for their generic prescriptions. We give them continuing medical education locally and abroad, and sometimes we also provide them with clinic equipment,” said Go.

Senator Jinggoy Estrada, who earlier disclosed that physicians conniving with Bell-Kenz are earning around P2 million based on their productivity, asked if they pay for trips for their partner doctors.

To this, Go said yes. He, however, denied giving cash and gifting luxury cars to their partner doctors.

READ: Jinggoy Estrada fleshes out multi-million doctors-pharma collusion 

While he admitted that Bell-Kenz gives “incentives,” Go maintained that the firm is law-abiding.

“We offer hope even in the face of illness, ensuring that both dependable and affordable for all. In recent days, our company has found itself in a web of misinformation propagated through various media channels.

“I stand before this assembly to vehemently refuse these baseless allegations and to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to integrity and compliance,” said Go.

READ: BELL-KENZ, a target of competitors?

“Let me unequivocally assert the following truth about Bell-Kenz Pharma: we are a law-abiding pharmaceutical entity diligently adhering to all regulations set by the FDA, SEC, PMA, and other relevant governing bodies,” he said.

Go was pertaining to the Food and Drug Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Philippine Medical Association.

‘We operate in a pharmaceutical marketing method and ensure that we do it in transparency, ethical integrity with our practices upholding the highest standards of corporate conduct,” he added.

On price of medicine

Meanwhile, Go insisted that doctors can “lower the cost of patient care by prescribing quality products that cost much less,” adding that Bell-Kenz does not manufacture medicine, but just trade or buy from an importer.

“If you compare us to leading brands, we are much cheaper,” said Go.

This, however, was axed by Estrada who then presented a list supposedly showing prices of medicine in the market.

“Cheaper? But I have here a chart. Yung Cardipres [na] ang manufacturer ay Bell-Kenz P18.50, yung sa GX International P14.58 lang. Mas mahal ang inyong gamot,” said Estrada.

(For example, Cardipres from Bell-Kenz costs P18.50 while the one from GX International only costs P14.58. Your medicine is more expensive.)

In the end, Go assured the committee that they would submit a list of their medicines, including their prices compared to other firms.

Conflict of interest

But is granting incentives to partners unethical? Senator Raffy Tulfo, who was also present at the hearing, posed this question to Health Secretary Ted Herbosa.

“If it is not disclosed. This request to [the] pharma industry for educational grant[s] like attending a conference, national or international, should be reported to the FDA based on the Mexico Principle. If they do not report it, then it is unethical and probably even illegal,” said Herbosa.

Tulfo then asked Go if these had been reported, to which the Bell-Kenz chair answered: “We are already partially complying with this issue.”