RBC: police are checking more than 40 doctors of St. Petersburg oncology centers in the case of selling drugs on the black market

The police are checking more than 40 doctors from oncology centers in St. Petersburg in connection with the sale of government drugs on the black market, RBC reports , citing a source close to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and materials of the case that the editorial office has at its disposal.

According to investigators, employees of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche gave doctors money in the form of payment for participation in conferences, lectures and seminars. They, in turn, wrote out prescriptions for drugs supplied by Roche. Using these prescriptions, pharmaceutical company employees obtained drugs from pharmacies that dispense subsidized drugs and sold them on the black market.

In March 2018, it became known that a case of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code) had been opened against several former Roche employees. According to investigators, they sold almost 58 million rubles worth of the blood cancer drug rituximab on the black market.

When investigators raided the pharmaceutical company and seized documents, it became clear that some doctors' presentations at Roche conferences were identical to those of their colleagues, and that the events they were supposed to attend did not actually take place.

In particular, none of the 31 conferences were held for employees of the Research Institute of Hematology and Transfusiology of the FMBA, and one doctor who allegedly attended the conference died six months before it was held.

In addition, there were no Roche conferences for the City Clinical Oncology Center of St. Petersburg. A similar situation has developed at the National Medical Research Center for Oncology named after N.N. Petrov and the National Medical Research Center named after V.A. Almazov.