The sales director transferred 35000 yuan to a doctor via WeChat, who prescribed 18000 medications per year. The website of the National Medical Insurance Administration reported a case of commercial bribery involving a pharmaceutical consulting service company.

On January 11th, the website of the National Healthcare Security Administration announced the above case based on the administrative penalty decision. According to the announcement, in January 2023, Shanghai Haiyile Enterprise Consulting Management Partnership Enterprise (hereinafter referred to as Haiyile Company) signed a one-year information service agreement with Shanghai Hongjian Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hongjian Pharmaceutical Company") to promote and provide information services for Hongjian Pharmaceutical Company's sales of "Heparin Sodium Injection" (product name: Wanmai Ning, specification 0.2ml: 5000AXa1U, 0.2ml ? 2 bottles) in the Shanghai area.

Haiyilai Company, which specializes in pharmaceutical marketing planning, has daily tasks including visiting distribution enterprises and terminal links, collecting adverse drug reaction data, providing feedback on disease treatment effectiveness, organizing academic conferences, visiting doctors, and writing marketing planning reports. Haiyilai Company promises to Hongjian Pharmaceutical Company to maintain and increase the total sales of Wanmai Ning drugs in Shanghai through its services, in order to undertake the marketing planning services for Wanmai Ning drugs sold by Hongjian Pharmaceutical Company.

From January to December 2023, in order to allow doctors from Shanghai First Maternity and Child Health Hospital to prescribe more Wanmai Ning drugs, the company's sales and promotion director and shareholder Yuan promised that reproductive immunology doctor Gu would provide a benefit fee for prescribing the involved drugs. According to statistics, during the above period, Yuan paid 4 benefits fees through personal WeChat transfer, totaling 35046 yuan. During the corresponding period, Doctor Gu prescribed a total of 18275 doses of Wan Mai Ning. Haiyilai Company obtained a total of 868677 yuan in business revenue from Wanmai Ning's marketing and information services in 2023 from Hongjian Pharmaceutical Company.

According to the report, the Market Supervision Administration of Putuo District, Shanghai believes that Haiyile Company has engaged in commercial bribery and has decided to impose an administrative penalty of a fine of 300000 yuan on it. After receiving the source information of the case, the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Bureau initiated a credit evaluation procedure for the involved distribution enterprise in accordance with regulations, requiring the distribution enterprise to identify the actual controlling entity of the dishonest behavior. Hongjian Pharmaceutical Company has provided sales contracts, invoices, and other information related to the involved product, Heparin Sodium Injection, with Hebei Changshan Biochemical Pharmaceutical Company. Subsequently, the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Bureau will initiate a credit evaluation of Hebei Changshan Biochemical Pharmaceutical Company, which has penetrated the production enterprise in this case.

Hebei Changshan Biochemical Pharmaceutical Company, also known as A-share listed Changshan Pharmaceutical (300255. SZ), specializes in the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and is one of the few domestic enterprises with a complete heparin product industry chain. According to public information, heparin is an important natural anticoagulant mainly used for preventing and treating thrombosis, and can also be used for myocardial infarction. The main indications for Sodium Heparin Injection (Wanmai Ning) are for the treatment of acute deep vein thrombosis and unstable coronary artery disease, such as unstable angina and non-Q wave myocardial infarction; Prevent thrombosis related to surgery. Public information shows that serious adverse reactions that require special attention to sodium heparin injection include bleeding, spinal cord/epidural hematoma, and heparin induced thrombocytopenia.

Wanmai Ning, mentioned in the above case, is the main product under Changshan Pharmaceutical with annual sales exceeding 170 million yuan. According to the company's 2024 financial report, the company continued to increase its promotion efforts for heparin sodium injection in 2024. The sales volume of heparin sodium injection increased by 26.68% year-on-year, but due to the impact of price decline, the sales revenue reached 172.4415 million yuan, which is basically the same as that of 2023.

In response to the above-mentioned case, the National Healthcare Security Administration once again emphasizes that pharmaceutical commercial bribery is essentially an act of giving undue benefits to influence prescription rights, interfere with normal diagnosis and treatment behavior, hinder fair competition, and increase the burden on medicine. In this case, the bribe taker, as a frontline clinical medical staff, did not prescribe based on actual clinical value and product quality and efficacy, but instead used high rebates and kickbacks to seek personal gain. At the same time, the illegitimate benefits accepted by the bribe taker all come from the operation and circulation enterprises, which also exposes the existence of inflated sales expenses in the drug circulation process. The inflated part does not form legitimate profits for the enterprise, nor is it used for innovation and quality, but hinders fair competition.

It is worth noting that Changshan Pharmaceutical may be affected by the credit evaluation mechanism as a result of this case. The National Healthcare Security Administration established a price procurement credit evaluation system in 2020, which conducts credit rating for enterprises with prominent problems such as pharmaceutical purchase and sales bribery and cash sales investigated by court judgments and relevant departments, and takes restrictive measures such as restricting online listing and distribution. The pharmaceutical commercial bribery involved includes commercial bribery committed by pharmaceutical enterprises, as well as commercial bribery committed by their employees (including employment relationships) or distribution enterprises with agency relationships.