British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline will stop paying physicians to speak about its drugs and linking sales representatives' pay to how many prescriptions physicians write, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
GSK said it aims to have its new pay plan for sales reps in effect globally by early 2015 and plans for the changes to physicians' payments to take effect globally by 2016.
The company has said the changes are not linked to a continuing investigation into the company in China, according to the WSJ report. This summer, Chinese authorities accused GSK of bribing physicians, hospitals and government officials as part of efforts to sell more drugs at raised prices. The company has said it is cooperating with that investigation.
GSK already stopped linking written prescriptions to drug reps' pay in the states as part of a 2012 settlement — the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the United States, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
GSK agreed to pay $3 billion last year and pled guilty to criminal charges that it illegally promoted and withheld safety information on some of its drugs. As part of that deal, GSK agreed to end its U.S. practice of tying a portion of drug reps' pay to how many prescriptions the physicians, whom they sold to, wrote for GSK drugs.
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