Bitter Pills:Medicines & The Third World Poor | Page 230

107

108

Procurement and manufacture of drugs for use in primary health care in Bangladesh, May
1979, report of the study team recruited by the World Bank for ihe Government of the People's
Republic of Bangladesh. "The relatively very high costs of some medicines produced
commercially in Bangladesh is striking." (p. 12)
Ibid.

109

-

110

Officeof Health Economics, Health Care Research Expenditure, Briefing No. 6, June 1978.

SCRIP, No. 674, 10 March 1982, p . l .
Brand name products make up just over 90% of medicines prescribed by GPs in the U K
(excluding hospital sales) (P. F. Lumley, ABP1, personal communication, 21 June 1982)

CHAPTKR5
1

A B P I , " C o d e of Practice for I he Pharmaceutical Industry " . Tillh l-.diiion (December 1978).
para.15.1, Data Sheet Compendium 1979-80 1979.

2

Including in 1980, Glaxo, Merck Sharp& Dohme, Nicholas. Rcekiit&Colmanand Wellcome
( MIMS Middle East, Volume 11, Number 2, 1980).

3

Merck Sharp & Dohme advise us in 1982 "The Mohdar Corporation, as you mention, distributes
our products; it does not, we are assured, hire a ' 'part-time ' ' salesman to promote (our)
products. Rather, representation is made by Merck employees who are well trained and carefully
supervised. Merck has a large, worldwide organisation and for a distributor to be the Company's
surrogate with physicians would certainly be the exception rather than the rule. The Company,
cannot however, always provide professional representation where it operates through
distributors, as in Yemen. In all arrangements with distributors, an agreement to comply with
Merck standards is an important stipulation of the contract. Merck field and headquarters
executives know these distributors well and visit them periodically to have first-hand knowledge
of their operations. The training given to Company representatives is intensive and detailed..."
"No system that we know of is infallible, which is why we took immediate steps to investigate
the situation suggested by your letter." (John Stuart, Executive Director Public Affairs, Merck,
Sharp & Dohme, 18 March 1982.) At the time of going to press, we have no response from
Glaxo to this case speci