the essential
Several Tarn pharmacists are now being prosecuted following the “Urgo affair”. Like their colleagues in other departments, they had accepted various “gifts” in kind from the pharmaceutical company, in exchange for giving up commercial discounts.
The affair shook the pharmacy community. A giant of the sector, the Urgo group, specializing in the treatment of wounds and well known to the general public for its dressings, was at the center of a large-scale investigation launched in 2021 by the fraud repression.
At issue: illegal practices implemented by the group since 2015, aimed at granting French pharmacists benefits in kind. A “massive” breach of the “anti-gifts” system provided for by the public health code. Concretely, Urgo salespeople offered pharmacists private rewards in return for purchasing branded products and waiving commercial discounts. “Gifts” that they chose from a catalog and whose value corresponded to the amount of the discounts: computers, furniture, champagne, stays, etc.
Pharmacists sentenced in Albi
In total, Urgo has paid the equivalent of 55 million euros in benefits in kind to around 8,000 French pharmacists. After the group was sentenced in January 2023 to a fine of 1.125 million euros, including 625,000 euros suspended, the fraud prevention services continued their investigations with the pharmacists involved. Because accepting these “gifts” also constitutes an offense.
In Tarn, which has 130 pharmacies, several pharmacists are concerned. Three of them have already been tried by the Albi judicial court since the beginning of November, as part of “guilty plea” procedures (CRPC). During the hearing to approve the judgments on November 18, two pharmacists from Albi were sentenced to fines of €5,000, €4,000 of which was suspended. They will also have to pay a symbolic €1 to the national council of the order of pharmacists, which had become a civil party.
One of them had received 17 “gifts” between 2015 and 2022, worth almost €15,000. The products “offered” by Urgo could be used as part of the pharmacist's activity (beanbags, telephones, lamps, etc.), others on a truly personal basis: bicycle, electric scooter, gift vouchers for thalassotherapy stays, bottles of alcohol, jewelry…
“Trapped” by Urgo?
Within the jurisdiction of the Albi judicial court, 12 pharmacists are concerned by amounts exceeding €10,000, indicates prosecutor Stéphanie Bazart. Other cases are underway at the Castres judicial court.
Contacted by La Dépêche du Midi, Bernard Champanet, president of the Tarn pharmacists' union, defends the profession and pleads the good faith of health professionals. “Urgo's speech was to say that all this was legal. I am shocked that a laboratory could trap pharmacists like that.” According to him, the products offered by Urgo were not gifts. “Instead of having discounts, pharmacists were entitled to points and could choose products from a catalog that looked completely official. They bought these products, paid for with their discounts.”
