Decoupling incentives from prescription volumes: is the approach robust enough?

29th November 2016 |   Journal Of Sales Transformation

The GSK bribery scandal rocked pharma when a record fine was handed down in 2014. It has forced the company and the wider industry to reconsider their sales approaches.

Just over two years ago the Wall Street Journal reported that UK drug giant GSK’s local subsidiary in China had been found guilty of bribery and fined nearly half a billion dollars – reputedly the largest-ever corporate fine in China. Five of the company’s managers, including its former top executive in China Mark Reilly, were convicted of bribery-related charges and received suspended prison sentences.

The Chinese authorities originally opened their investigation into the company in June 2013 and the scandal has rocked the pharma world and switched the spotlight firmly onto ethics in sales and corporate corruption in general. Since then, the company has issued a fulsome apology and taken steps to clean up its act.

So how much really has changed. Here we publish extracts from a new white paper: GSK’s new ‘ethical’ customer approach: Is it delivering? Published by our friends at eyeforpharma.com, it explores key lessons in the aftermath of the affair.