GlaxoSmithKline to stop paying doctors to promote its products

British drugs maker GlaxoSmithKline will no longer pay doctors to promote its products and will stop tying salaries of sales staff to the number of prescriptions doctors write, its chief executive says, effectively ending two common industry practices that critics have long assailed as conflicts of interest.

The announcement appears to be a first for a major drug company and comes at a particularly sensitive time for Glaxo. It is the subject of a bribery investigation in China, where authorities contend the company funneled illegal payments to doctors and government officials in an effort to lift drug sales.

Andrew Witty, Glaxo's chief executive, said on Monday that its proposed changes were unrelated to the investigation in China, and part of a years-long effort "to try to make sure we stay in step with how the world is changing", he said.

"We keep asking ourselves, are there different ways, more effective ways of operating than perhaps the ways we as an industry have been operating over the past 30, 40 years?"

For decades, drug companies have paid doctors to speak on their behalf at meetings of medical professionals, under the assumption that the doctors were most likely to value the advice of trusted peers.

But the practice has also been criticised by those who question whether it unduly influences the information doctors give each other and can lead them to prescribe drugs inappropriately.