Alex Almici

(Department of Management and Economics, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy)

 

 

Abstract: Corruption in the pharmaceutical industry has become a hot topic as the several cases of misconducts reported by worldwide media in recent years. The present research aims at identifying the reasons of the diffusion of corrupt practices in this sector, focusing on the evaluation of the effectiveness of company’s internal controls. More exactly, the analysis is carried out to verify if the compliance controls-actually implemented in pharmaceutical companies-need a strong improvement to combat corruption, or otherwise, they are sound and well functioning. In order to achieve the above stated aim, a content analysis is performed considering the top twenty largest European pharmaceutical companies by operational revenue, listed on one or more of the main stock exchanges in December 2014. Main findings underline that compliance controls implemented in the selected companies are weak with regard to some aspects and, thus, vulnerable to corruption.

 

 

Key words: pharmaceuticals; corruption; compliance; internal controls

 

JEL codes: M10, M16