Chiesi found to have breached ABPI Code

Privately-held Italian drugmaker Chiesi Farmaceutici has been publicly reprimanded for providing inaccurate information to the UK’s Prescription Medicines Code Of Practice Authority (PMCPA), breaching the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry.

The action happened during the course of a complaint about a leavepiece and again during the course of a subsequent audit. Chiesi was found to have made a misleading and unsubstantiated claim about asthma drug Fostair, a metered-dose inhaler combining beclomethasone dipropionate and formoterol fumarate dehydrate.

The Code of Practice Panel ruled breaches of the code and additionally noted a discrepancy between the presentation of the claim at issue in a leavepiece provided by Chiesi and the citation of that claim by the parties. Before the PMCPA raised the matter with Chiesi, the company contacted the PMCPA and explained that an employee had changed the claim after certification of what should have been the final form of the leavepiece. This discrepancy had not been picked up by the company until it received the outcome of the Panel’s consideration of the case. Following this admission by Chiesi, the Panel noted Chiesi’s further admission that in its first undertaking, the date on which the material was stated to have been withdrawn was wrong, it was actually withdrawn two weeks later.