Pharmaton, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, is being charged by a Korean ginseng extract producer for making fraudulent claims on the use of Korean ginseng in its ginseng products which are sold in over 80 countries worldwide.
New Century Pharma Co. has sent a petition to a number of authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration of the United States, citing the allegation; a ruling by the FDA is expected within a couple of months.
According to a report by the FDA's Food Labeling and Nutrition News, the FDA promised to ``take action, if warranted'' to stop the fraudulent claims of the ginseng -containing products marketed by Pharmaton.
The response was based on a letter from NCP president Park Woo-young who asked the agency to take immediate measures, including civil and criminal sanctions as well as penalties, to prohibit the claims made by Pharmaton.
Park said in an interview with The Korea Times that Pharmaton has labeled its products _ Ginsana G115 and Geriatric Pharmaton Capsules _ as containing only Korean ginseng extracts when the items actually contain ginseng from other countries.
The NCP has a worldwide exclusive license for manufacturing the Korean ginseng extract G115, cited as the main ingredient in the two Pharmaton products. However, it has not supplied the powder to the Swiss firm since 1996.
Park said, ``the NCP has been the exclusive supplier of Korean ginseng roots and Korean ginseng extract G115 to Pharmaton for nearly three decades since 1969, during which time its sales in the United States soared.
``However, NCP completely stopped supplying the ingredient to Pharmaton after learning that it had been purchasing ginseng from countries other than Korea, mainly China, in huge quantities.''
Park explained that data obtained from agents in China showed that since 1988, Pharmaton imported more than 1,000 metric tons of Chinese ginseng from China, even as procurement from the NCP declined and production increased substtantially.
Despite such concrete evidence, he said, Pharmaton, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Boehringer-Ingelheim, continues to claim that its products contain ginseng extract G115 from genuine Korean ginseng roots.
Owing to the fallout with Pharmaton, Park's business has also suffered considerably in recent years, with its sales dropping from a high of over $25 million in 1995 to just a few million the last couple of years.
``This is more than just a personal business matter. Consumers in the United States, in particular, are being led to believe that genuine Korean ginseng and its extracts are being used in the Pharmaton products that they purchase.
``A confirmation that Pharmaton has been fraudulently labeling its products will allow Korean ginseng makers to regain their reputation as the sole suppliers of products of the highest quality,'' Park pointed out.
In a related development, the Office of Consumer Protection of the Office of the Prime Minister of Thailand notified Park early this month that ``legal action'' has been taken against Pharmaton for using the wording ``Korean ginseng extract'' in its advertisement in a local magazine.
1998.11.20
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Newsdesk