ISOLDI will go to the Region and the State: more than seven million euros, the result of the settlements of the nine pharmaceutical companies involved in the investigation into the farmafraffa. Thus concluded the first section of the proceeding (the one concerning the liability of legal persons and therefore of companies) born from the investigation which involved 126, including scientific representatives, doctors and pharmacists.
It was the chief prosecutor Emilio Marzano and the deputy Ciro Angelillis (owner of the file) who drew up the balance. "I hope that the recovered sum will be destined by the Puglia Region to create a visible work that is the flagship of the activity carried out" explained the head of the Bari investigating magistracy. After the fraud scandal, prosecutor Angelillis had asked for the suspension for three months of the activity of the eight pharmaceutical companies in Italy. A request revoked after the companies' commitment to change their organizational models. Hence the plea agreement, agreed by the prosecution and defense, and ratified by the investigating judge. Overall, the sum recovered is seven million and 120 thousand euros, a figure to which the interest accrued from the bank deposit must also be added. Pfizer paid one and a half million euros, Astrazeneca nine hundred thousand, Lusofarmaco and Novartis just over one million, Recordati 724 thousand, Bracco 718 thousand, Bristol 359 thousand, Biofutura 474 thousand and Glaxo 419 thousand. The sum is valid as compensation, but also covers the value of the increased profit and the fine. Two million and 950 thousand euros will be allocated to the Region, an amount equivalent to the damage suffered with the farmafraffa. The rest of the money will end up in the state coffers.
During the press conference, which was attended by the Nas carabinieri and the traffic police who conducted the investigations at the time, the chief prosecutor underlined the importance of wiretapping.
"The investigation that led to the recovery of the funds was possible thanks to wiretaps that sometimes cost too much, but in the end they pay off" he explained and then added: "We feel a certain concern about the projects in the pipeline in the legislative field because wiretapping is an important tool for arriving at claims of responsibility". The plea agreement of the nine pharmaceutical companies has closed only one chapter in the judicial history of the farmafraffa: 101, including pharmacists, doctors and scientific informants, are in fact accused in the trial with the ordinary rite which for reasons of space will be celebrated in the halls of the Court of Assizes. Pharmaceutical company representatives promised gifts to doctors who prescribed their companies' medicines. The pharmacists collected the punches. The investigations have ascertained how the drugs, in some cases expensive anticancer drugs, were then also thrown into the garbage cans. The risk of prescription is real.
La Repubblica of 02/17/2009, article by GABRIELLA DE MATTEIS ed. Bari p. 07
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