China warns doctors against accepting bribes from pharma firms

Chinese doctors who take kickbacks from drug companies or accept money from patients will face punishments ranging from censure to dismissal, the government has warned, widening a crackdown on corruption in the Communist nation's huge pharmaceutical sector.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine said in a joint circular that doctors are banned from promoting medical ads and taking commissions from the prescription of drugs.
Doctors are not allowed to accept illegal donations, nor are they allowed to purchase or use medical products, the circular published yesterday said.
The move to promote clean work styles among doctors came as part of a more comprehensive campaign against corruption launched by the ruling Communist Party of China at the end of 2012, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline Plc was accused by Chinese police in July of using travel agencies as intermediaries to make illegal payments to doctors.
China's pharmaceutical market is expected to record 17 per cent annual growth through 2020 and become the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, a recent industry report had said.

The retail market size of China's pharmaceutical sector will jump to 1.9 trillion yuan (USD 310 billion) from 600 billion yuan in 2012, consultancy McKinsey said in a report.
Hospitals are expected to contribute about 84 per cent of overall sales and will continue to be the dominant sales channel for drugs, the report said.

In December last year, the leadership of the Communist Party of China began to promote an "eight-point" set of guidelines to ban extravagance and formalism from events attended by officials.
Meanwhile, China's Ministry of Education has issued a new regulation that requires ministry officials to turn down gifts, banquets and entertainment activities offered by schools and local education authorities.
The regulation said ministry officials should "not cause trouble" and interrupt normal order during trips to schools and local education authorities.
It also prohibited receptions, seeing-off ceremonies, and sight-seeing tours for ministry officials.