[Reporter’s Eye] For unbiased KPBMA ethics committee

Industry-representing associations are often perplexed among various opinions of businesses of all sizes.

 

Unlike small and medium-sized companies urging the regulation to be versatile for the survival of many companies, large corporations focus more on industry support and advancement.

 

Often, the companies express contrasting opinions on a same regulation.

 

The industry association, supposed to generally cover all member companies, gets into an internal dispute when it loses balance among them.

 

And pharmaceutical industry associations were no exception.

 

When the industry was sensitive with the drug pricing system revision in early 2019, many of small and medium-sized companies talked of collectively leaving the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association (KPBMA) as they complained the association has turned its back on the small and medium-sized companies and represented the large corporations’ benefit.

 

The association’s ethics committee has to maintain a fine balance as well.

 

The association consists of 10 committees to research for or deliberate about businesses, and the ethics committee reviews misdemeanor by a member company and takes appropriate disciplinary action.

 

In other words, the penalty on a member company’s misconduct imposed by the ethics committee provides an opportunity for the industry to self-reflect on itself.

 

The committee’s disciplinary action would not hurt a company financially, but it would take a detrimental hit on the corporate image.

 

For instance, the ethics committee imposed a penalty of disqualification on Pharma King for the charge of providing illegal rebate in 2016.

 

The same disciplinary action was taken on Binex and Vivozon lately for manufacturing drugs for not following the authorized label.

 

Since the news broke out on Mar.

 

8 of the allegation, the association moved fast.

 

On Mar.

 

11, it issued an official statement that the companies would be “strictly penalized to set an example,” and convened an emergency ethics committee a week after.

 

But the issue with the ethics committee is that it distances itself from consistency.

 

The ethics committee seems to be biased towards small and medium-sized companies, compared against large corporations.

 

Back in October 2019, Dong-A ST was sentenced for illegal rebate and decided to voluntarily leave the association.

 

In the case of Parma King, Binex and Vivozone, the association, which preemptively opened the ethics committee before the results of the trial came out, waited patiently until the Supreme Court sentence was confirmed in the Dong-A ST case.

 

At that time, Dong-A ST was the chairman company of the association.

 

A year after the incident, Dong-A ST rejoined the origination in November 2020.

 

On top of everything, the company was once again designated as a chairman company.

 

Currently, the JW Group, under an investigation for the allegation of providing illegal rebates, is also favored by the association.

 

Some cases of misconduct are dealt by the ethics committee, while others do not.

 

Even for the same issue, smaller scale of misdemeanor faces worse penalty.

 

The reason for the inconsistent standard is because the ethics committee is convened without clear regulations.

 

.Members committing misconduct may or may not be penalized

 

.Reprimanding a member charged with the wrongdoing is also a duty the association has

 

.However, the committee should clarify the grounds when taking a disciplinary action

 

.Only when everyone is on the same page as to when the ethics committee is convened for what kind of misconduct and in what scale, the penalty on the responsible member would be agreeable and acceptable

 

.Based on the precedents, it feels like the ethics committee, firmly conservative on large corporation, tends to open promptly for small and medium-sized companies

 

.Hopefully, the association to become more well-trusted by the pharmaceutical and bio industry and better represent the whole of the industry

 

.