Novartis Faces Criminal Complaint Over Diovan Research In Japan

For Novartis, the embarrassing scandal over Diovan research in Japan has taken another turn for the worse. A non-governmental organization has filed a criminal complaint that accuses the drugmaker of using manipulated clinical trial data, which was carried out by several universities, to exaggerate the benefits of the widely used hypertension treatment in its advertising, according to Yomiuri Shimbun. Medwatcher Japan charged that medical journals aimed at physicians and other health care providers ran advertising that cited the research and made misleading statements. And in doing so, the NGO claims that Novartis violated the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law and the Unfair Competition Prevention Law by relying on fraudulent labeling. The complaint comes less than a month after a government panel found Novartis may have violated Japanese law by using faulty data to promote its widely used heart drug, an offense that could lead to various penalties (here is the report). The panel noted Novartis marketing literature – such as brochures for physicians and handouts for lectures - often featured research papers by the universities. And last week, Shiga University of Medical Science became the third university to concluded that a Diovan study contained questionable data (back story). Earlier this year, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and Jikei University reached the same conclusion about the studies, which touted Diovan as capable of reducing heart attacks and strokes. “An u...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs