Compliance is a dirty word...

The Straits Time, Tuesday, July 3 2007

As if it hadn't already been difficult to do much things in pharma, with the corporate governance thing sweeping across industries globally post Enron, Worldcom, etc.

Locally, the SAPI code of marketing practises became more stringent several years ago due to complaints from the medical fraternity on the aggressive and seeemingly 'unethical' marketing by some companies. The launch event of a new drug back in 2003 raised plenty of eyebrows for the extravagant event location held in a 6-star hotel with night stay's thrown in for the participant, premium booze, top range entertainment and even childcare services! No doubt the participants made up largely of doctors across the sectors were delirious. (It is rare to be given such treats in their profession. The general population by and large thinks that doctors should be doing charity works and earning peanuts compensated by the immense amount of compassion they possess.) this triggered off a massive anti-xxx company campaign by its competitors who propagated these sentiments to the authorities and various CMBs of the hospitals and created their own tit-for-tat strategy of offering cruises to nowhere, golf clinics, wine appreciation classes, the list goes on. The fact that the launch event was spilled over two days with a robust and continous CME program was totally negated.

SAPI then responded with an elongated code of marketing practices and a new algorithm for companies to air the grievances and formally lodge a complaint against another. (this resulted in several clash of the titans meetings between a couple of long feuding giants) Suddenly the marketer is told to tone down, keep a lower profile, increase vigilence...

Come to jan 2007, the IFPMA came into the scene, releasing a new international code of marketing practises in which marketers had to spend hours reconciling with the sapi code and attending the legal counsel's training. the IFPMA simply offers tighter control on an already barren environment. (in the local context)

Compliance is a necessary evil. without governance, organizations behave like humans. Integrity will succumb to greed. It is good for the industry to self-regulate rather than to have the regulatories intervene when its too late. Negative perceptions have particularly serious implications for pharma due to the nature of the products and purposes that it seem to represent.

Looking around, PMs are latently devoid of compliant ideas, support (be it medical, legal, financial or administrative) are lacking as everyone is watching out for his/her own turf. if compliance is ALL that drives a company's decisions(and i know of some companies that do so), no matter how minute and non-consequential, conduction of day to day marketing and sales practices, protocols will multiply, processes will get stifled, creativity and innovations will erode and pretty soon we may not even need marketers anymore (as it is, we are already enroute to that eventuality)