Guild to take on pharmaceutical giant GSK in court

MEDIA RELEASE

1 April 2010

Guild to take on pharmaceutical giant GSK in court

The Pharmacy Guild (the Guild) will be taking multinational drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to court to get compensation for the community pharmacies that worked on the consumer level recall of Marevan (warfarin) 3mg tablets.

“Individual community pharmacists are defenceless against pharmaceutical companies like GSK,” says Annabel Young, the Guild’s CE.

On 28 January 2010, GSK asked every community pharmacy to contact all patients who had the medication dispensed since 23 November 2009.

“This was a dangerous situation for the patients affected. Community pharmacists’ primary concern is patient safety and they have an ethical and moral duty to look after their patient’s health first. They stepped up to the call and utilised their time and expertise to help swiftly resolve this serious problem.

“As frontline health care providers and medicines experts, community pharmacists deserve the respect of the pharmaceutical companies. Many of our members spent hours phoning their affected patients, giving them guidance and advice. GSK seems to think that all pharmacists do is hand over the pills – they have no appreciation for the disruption this recall caused.

“This is an important issue for our members. Many of them have spent hours on this recall and they have a reasonable expectation that their costs should be covered. GSK is not dealing with our members appropriately and they are refusing to provide any compensation for the work done.

“This is why the Guild has decided to place significant investment in this court action on behalf of all our members.”

The recall of Marevan (warfarin) 3mg tablets was the first of two medicine recalls in two months. Mylan NZ is undertaking a recall of Respigen Inhalers (salbutamol) distributed to patients between August and November 2009.

Marevan is an anti-coagulant medicine taken by patients with an increased risk of blood clotting. The recall was due to a manufacturing problem resulting in tablets potentially containing more or less warfarin than the labelled amount.

ENDS

Notes:
• The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand (Inc) is a national membership organisation representing community pharmacy owners. We provide leadership on all issues affecting the sector and we advocate for the business interests of community pharmacy.
• For additional information on the Guild and community pharmacy please go to www.pgnz.org.nz

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