SHANGHAI, Dec 27 (Reuters) - China will introduce ablacklist of drugmakers and medical device manufacturers foundto have paid bribes as it extends a crackdown on graft in thehealthcare sector.
Healthcare departments will compile lists of offendingmanufacturers, agents and individuals, which will be publishedonline, the National Health and Family Planning Commission saidon Friday. The list will come into effect from the beginning ofMarch.
Firms on the list once will be banned for two years fromselling within the region where they were implicated. Thoseappearing on the list twice in five years will be bannednationally, also for two years.
Corruption in the healthcare sector has been in thespotlight this year with regulators investigating internationaland domestic drugs firms and milk powder companies for suspectedgraft.
The most high-profile investigation involved Britishdrugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, significantly denting thefirm's China sales and spooking doctors more widely to reduceinteraction with sales teams.
GSK has said some of its senior Chinese executives appear tohave broken the law. It has also said it has zero tolerance forbribery, calling the allegations in China "shameful".
With the country's healthcare spending forecast to nearlytriple to $1 trillion by 2020 from $357 billion in 2011,according to consulting firm McKinsey, China is a magnet formakers of medicines and medical equipment.
The blacklists will include those found guilty of relativelyminor bribery but who may not have been punished by China'scourts, as well as those who have received administrativepunishments from sector and financial watchdogs.
The blacklists will display the name of the manufacturer oragent, its business address and legal representative, as well asdetails of the alleged crime, the commission said.
Under the amended rules, regional healthcare departmentswill be required to report their lists to the central healthcarecommission within a month. They will also need to give those itplans to list the right to query the ruling.
Any medical practitioners who receive bribes will also bepunished, and in severe cases have their medical licensesrevoked.
Corruption in China's medical sector is fuelled in part bylow base salaries for doctors and nurses at the country's 13,500public hospitals.
Glaxosmithkline (GSK)