In a new raid to Novartis offices in Athens, authorities secured a list with the names of 300 private and public doctors. the doctors reportedly received 1,000 to 5,000 euros in order to prescribe medicines of the Swiss drug-maker.
The payments were paid in the time period January 2016 to January 2017, that is while the company was already under investigation by Greek and US authorities.
The 300 names are added to the names of 4,000 doctors investigators have found to have received bribe by Novartis in order to prescribe its medicine or promote the products via the state health care system.
So far, no name of doctors allegedly involved has been leaked to the press.
Investigation continues and according to media information one of the three protected witnesses has given additional testimony bringing new evidence to the case.
The initial loss for the state and especially the Public health care system EOPYY was estimated to be 3 billion euros. with the new list of doctors the loss may be much higher.
Big pharma the world over has transformed the Hippocratic Oath into a hypocritical oath.