Big pharma loses case to Otara chemist

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A multinational pharmaceutical giant has been ordered to pay an Otara pharmacy for the costs of recalling a suspected faulty medicine.

Ian Johnson Pharmacy took GlaxoSmithKline to court seeking reasonable payment for expenses it incurred after the Marevan brand of blood-thinning medicine warfarin was recalled in January.

GlaxoSmithKline asked every community pharmacy to recall the medicine from all patients who had been given the medicine between November 2009 to January 2010.

Manukau District Court Judge Andree Wiltens found the pharmaceutical company should have paid a reasonable and proper price to Ian Johnson Pharmacy for its services.

"The necessity or desirability of complying with an ethical or moral obligation cannot be the basis for disentitling a claim for compensation for the time/effort involved in such compliance," he said.

GlaxoSmithKline argued there was nothing in its contract with the pharmacy that entitled the chemist to compensation, but Judge Wiltens found the written and oral contracts between the two parties implied proper payment for the services.

The contractual obligations did not deal with recall situations and the arrangements were "deficient in that regard", he said.

The need for a recall stemmed from GlaxoSmithKline, and the pharmacy's work was necessitated by the drug company's error.

Pharmacy Guild president Karen Crisp welcomed the judgment, saying it had successfully established a precedent that pharmacists could reasonably expect to be paid when asked to provide services.

The judge had clearly stated that an ethical or moral duty did not negate any right to be paid for the time and effort of doing the work, she said.

"This is an important principle affecting all people working in the heath system."