Past record as lobbyist for Amgen and Pfizer puts Labour leadership contender under the spotlight as he faces questions over ‘more choice’ comments

Owen Smith called on ministers to “improve incentives” for pharmaceutical companies and warned that the use of cheaper non-patent drugs by the NHS and elsewhere would affect the industry when he first became a Labour MP.



The leadership candidate, who worked as a drug company lobbyist before being elected to parliament, spoke in a parliamentary debate about epilepsy in 2010, warning that the government should be careful about “generic substitution of drugs” in treating that condition or in any other market in medicine.

Smith worked for Amgen as its chief lobbyist in the UK for two years before becoming MP for Pontypridd. Before that he was a lobbyist for US drug firm Pfizer from 2005.

“We must be careful about generic substitution of epilepsy drugs. I know that many sufferers agree with that. Another point is that genericisation of a market in medicines leads to changes in the economic incentives for research and development companies to produce them. There clearly are not incentives for companies to produce new epilepsy drugs,” Smith said in the debate in October 2010.

Amgen had previously sponsored a “parliamentary review” which produced a report by a group of peers and MPs, which called for “the urgent ban on the substitution of biopharmaceuticals” by generic drugs. The Amgen report, which was produced in 2007, before Smith had joined the company, was criticised by the European Generic Medicines Association as “scare tactics”, warning that it was “misrepresenting an event recently organised in the UK parliament by the originator industry as a formal parliamentary review”.

While Smith was employed by Amgen, the company was battling a US investigation into one of its most successful anaemia drugs, Aranesp. Amgen was fined $762m (£579m) in 2012 for illegally promoting the drug to cancer patients in a way that increased the likelihood of their deaths. Amgen was hit with the fines after it emerged that the California company was “pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety” as it promoted a non-approved use of Aranesp.

Smith was in charge of corporate affairs, corporate and internal communications and public affairs at the British division of Amgen between 2008 and 2010.

Earlier Smith also insisted he was fully committed to a publicly owned NHS and claimed that his call for greater choice in the health service while a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry did not mean he advocated privatisation.



But he conceded that Labour made a mistake while in power for the way it communicated the use of private providers in the NHS.

The Pontypridd MP became the sole challenger to Jeremy Corbyn when it became clear he had more backing among MPs and MEPs than Angela Eagle, who pulled out of the race on Tuesday.

While at Pfizer in 2005 Smith endorsed a Pfizer-backed report offering NHS patients easier access to private-sector healthcare. The Times revealed that he said: “We believe that choice is a good thing and that patients and healthcare professionals should be at the heart of developing the agenda.”

Challenged about the remarks on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Smith said it was a gross exaggeration to suggest that he wanted Pfizer to take over parts of the NHS.

He added: “I believe in a 100% publicly owned NHS free at the point of use.”

Smith pointed out that he did not commission the Pfizer report and that his remarks were taken from a press release. “I have never advocated privatisation of the NHS. It has been one of Labour’s proudest achievements. I grew up swaddled in stories of the Labour party creating the NHS out of south Wales.”

Smith said he would prevent greater private sector involvement in the NHS and conceded that it had been a mistake for Labour to advocate greater choice about providers.

He said: “There are obviously already many services in the NHS that are provided by private providers. There are a hell of a lot more of them now because of the way in which the current Tory government twisted some of the words of the last Labour government.

“Broadly speaking we made a mistake, the last Labour government, in not appreciating how a Tory government would ride a coach and horses through the language. In employing words like ‘choice’ we allowed them to use that as Trojan horse to try and marketise the NHS. I’m opposed to that.”



Smith confirmed that if he won the leadership contest he would offer Corbyn the chance to become president of the party. “Jeremy has got a way of communicating that many of our members find very appealing. Jeremy has still got a lot to say for the Labour party, but I don’t think Jeremy is a leader in parliament. But I would absolutely want him to take a role like president or chairman.”

Smith said there was an appetite in the UK for the sort of radicalism Corbyn has championed. But he added: “For that to have a real effect in Britain, we have got to be a powerful opposition to the current Tory government. And we have got to be a credible government-in-waiting in order to put those principles and that radicalism into practice, because without having a chance to win power it’s all hot air.

“People have lost faith in Jeremy because they don’t think he can convey that willingness and readiness to run Britain to the people.

“Jeremy has been great at identifying some of the questions that we have got to ask, but he has not been good at identifying the solutions.”

Labour supporters wanting to take part in the vote have until 5pm on Wednesday to register if they are willing to pay £25.