kha / stirling article in the australian

Vitamin Governor-General Quentin Bryce claim misled exchange
Sue Dunlevy From: The Australian March 03, 2011 12:00AM

A PHARMACEUTICAL company that has entered a $750,000 deal with Australia's peak kidney organisation to market vitamin tablets misled the stock exchange by initially claiming the deal was announced by Governor-General Quentin Bryce.

The deal has raised critical questions about the independence of Kidney Health Australia and has seen the highest office in Australia dragged into a commercial matter that could have influenced a company's share price.

Stirling Health, which plans to launch two vitamin pills for people with chronic kidney disease, will pay Kidney Health Australia $150,000 a year for five years in return for "mutual cross-promotion and branding opportunities" that it says will "raise its brand awareness".

In a press release issued to the Australian Stock Exchange last May, the company said "the partnering was announced yesterday at the launch of Kidney Health Week by Her Excellency the Governor-General of Australia Ms Quentin Bryce at Admiralty House in Sydney".

A spokeswoman for Ms Bryce said yesterday: "The Governor-General did not mention Stirling Products at any stage during the event at Admiralty House on May the 24th."

A second press release removed the reference to the Governor-General, and Stirling Products managing director Peter Boonen said that, even though the press releases bore his company's letterhead, "Kidney Health essentially did the release". And he insists that the Governor-General did acknowledge Stirling Health as a new sponsor of Kidney Health Australia at the Kidney Health Week launch.

Patient support groups such as Kidney Health are receiving millions of dollars a year from pharmaceutical companies under a grant system that is raising questions about the support groups' independence.

Pfizer Australia gave more than $1.7 million to 18 health organisations in 2008-09, Glaxo-SmithKline spent $1.4m sponsoring 14 consumer health groups, and drug companies are spending more than $1m a week wining and dining doctors.

Kidney Health Australia managing director Anne Wilson yesterday defended her organisation's partnership with a pharmaceutical company. She said the proposal to bring two kidney vitamin products to Australia was her idea.

Half the profits from the sale of the vitamins, which will bear Kidney Health Australia's logo, will be split between US drug company Nephroceuticals and Stirling Health, with Kidney Health Australia keeping 50 per cent.

"I run a business; it might be a healthcare charity but it's a business and if my business doesn't generate a profit I can't do anything for people with kidney disease," she told The Australian.