International Drug Company Bribes: Large Financial Rewards Are Being Offered to People That Expose Drug Company Bribes to Public Officials

International Drug Company Bribes: Large Financial Rewards Are Being Offered to People That Expose Drug Company Bribes to Public Officials by International Whistleblower Reward Lawyer Jason S. Coomer

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits bribery of foreign officials by U.S. and foreign companies listed on the U.S. securities exchange.  These prohibitions include large drug companies that are paying bribes to doctors, health care administrators, and other government officials to sell drugs and obtain large procurement contracts in China, Russia, and other pharmerging countries. 

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Whistleblowers that properly report violations of the FCPA by a U.S. or foreign company listed on the U.S. securities exchanges can recover a large reward for exposing FCPA violations.  These whistleblowers can expose bribery schemes through a lawyer and protect their identify. 

For more information on Exposing Drug Company Bribes, please go to the following website: International Whistleblower Rewards. 

Between $100 Billion to $200 Billion in Corrupt Drug Procurement Contracts Are Obtained Each Year Through Fraud and Corruption

Every year over $4.1 trillion (US dollars) is spent worldwide on health services including approximately $800 billion (US dollars) that is spent in the pharmaceutical market on drugs and medications. It is estimated that approximately 10 to 25% of public health care procurement spending including drug contracts, medicines, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and medical devices is lost to corrupt and fraudulent acts.  These acts include government official bribes, illegal kickbacks, and other illicit payment and fraud schemes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the term "medicines chain" to be the steps that are required for the creation, regulation, management and consumption of pharmaceuticals.  In other words it is the medication supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry from creation to end user. According to the World Health Organization, corruption is common in the international pharmaceutical sector and occurs throughout all stages of the medicines supply chain, from research and development to dispensing and promotion.  These unethical and corrupt practices in the medicines supply chain can take many forms such as falsification of evidence, false certification of adulterated drugs, import false certifications, export false certifications, conflicts of interest, and illegal bribe and kickback schemes.

As such, the World Health Organization and many other international public health organizations are seeking public policy changes under the umbrella of good governance initiatives within the medicines chain to reduce government corruption and optimize public health outcomes.  Some proposed public policy changes that can help reduce corruption and fraud in the pharmaceutical medicines chain include: 1) protection of international medicines supply chain whistleblowers; 2) offering financial incentives to international medicines chain whistleblowers; 3) passage of legislation and regulation for drug quality control and official certifications to monitor the transport of medications including the export and import of medicines throughout world and along international medicines supply chains; 4) increased enforcement mechanisms for violations of existing pharmaceutical laws and regulations; and 5) increased resources for conflict of interest management and checks to ensure key people in the medicines chain are not accepting illegal bribes, kickbacks, and other illicit payments.

In response to these good governance initiatives, the international community including the United States, United Kingdom, and many other countries have enacted new anti-bribery and anti corruption laws that will enable persons with knowledge of international medicines supply chain fraud and corruption to expose the illegal acts and reap rewards from blowing the whistle, while being protected from potential retaliation from the wrong doers.

While there are an increasing number of reported cases of corruption in the medicines chain, much unethical practice has historically gone unreported.  This is changing as new whistleblower protections and whistleblower financial incentives are coming into place to help overcome  institutionalized corruption in the pharmaceutical medicines chain and to provide protection for courageous whistleblowers that want to change the institutionalized corruption that is damaging their countries.

Because medicines typically change hands several times in the medicines chain between the drug manufacturer and patients, the large number of steps in the medicines chain allows numerous opportunities for unethical practices to take place.  Therefore increased regulations and laws throughout the medicines chain including manufacturing quality assurances, export regulations and inspections, import regulations and inspections, health care provider regulations and inventory policies, and patient protections are needed.  Fortunately, the new international whistleblower laws will allow international whistleblowers with specialized knowledge of the corruption to blow the whistle on fraud, false certifications, and illicit payments that are occurring throughout the medicines chain.   

A lack of transparency and accountability within the medicines chain can also contribute to unethical practices and corruption.  Therefore increased enforcement mechanisms are needed for violations of existing pharmaceutical laws and regulations.  These enforcement mechanisms include "SEC Bounty Actions" that allow private citizens to work through international medicines supply chain whistleblower reward lawyers to expose significant fraud and obtain large bounties for successful prosecution of pharmaceutical illicit payment schemes.  Ideally, these international medicines supply chain whistleblower reward actions will track fraud and corruption to the root causes and help reform corporate corruption of public health care systems.  Through international pharmaceutical representative whistleblowers, international drug executive whistleblowers, foreign government official whistleblowers, health care provider whistleblowers, and other medicines supply chain whistleblowers, the international community can efficiently identify, expose, and remedy medicines chain corruption.