Drug firm exec says 50 shareholders are doctors, some with gov’t hospital

Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Luis Go faces Senate probe on the alleged “multi-level” marketing schemes leveled against the company. SCREENGRAB FROM THE SENATE HEARING

MANILA, Philippines — A top official of a homegrown drug distributor on Tuesday admitted that the company has been “incentivizing” doctors for prescribing their medicines, a practice that Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa flagged as a breach of ethical standards in the medical profession.

Facing a Senate inquiry, Dr. Luis Raymond Go, chair and CEO of Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc., said they paid for the foreign trips of physicians who had advised their patients to take their products, mostly for cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and diabetes. But he clarified that they did not give away luxury cars, only watches and these were not Rolexes.

Fielding questions from Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Go acknowledged that 50 of their shareholders were doctors, many of them cardiologists like him, with some connected to the state-run Philippine Heart Center.

READ: Bell-Kenz pharma exec tells senators: We are a law-abiding entity

But he flatly denied allegations that the pharmaceutical firm was involved in a multilevel marketing scheme, in which doctors recruited fellow physicians to push its products to patients in exchange for millions of pesos in “rebates,” luxury cars and expensive watches.

Continued medical education

Bell-Kenz, Go claimed, was actually offering medicines for lifestyle diseases that were cheaper than other prescription drugs.

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

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

He said the foreign travels were meant to help doctors “upgrade their skills and knowledge on diseases, which our drugs are [intended] to treat.”

But Estrada immediately challenged Go’s claims, pointing out that many of Bell-Kenz’s medicines were actually more expensive than those made by other firms.

He also grilled the pharmaceutical executive about the direct role of doctors in the company, noting that records from the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that many of the shareholders were physicians.

“Do you agree that there is a conflict of interest when a doctor is also an investor in a pharmaceutical company and prescribes the medicines of the said firm?” Estrada asked Go.

“I think when a doctor is already an investor in a company, whether or not he will prescribe the medicine or not, there is already a conflict of interest,” Go replied.

To “remedy” the situation, the doctor should make a full disclosure of his or her involvement in a pharmaceutical company, he said.