Pakistan Looks to Increase Transparency between Healthcare Providers and Industry
Pakistan may be the latest country onsidering increasing transparency in interactions between healthcare providers and industry. A story published in Pakistan news source the Express Tribune, states that the Pharma Bureau, an association of the research-based pharmaceutical multinationals, has embraced the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan’s (DRAP) initiative to increase transparency in interactions between healthcare providers and promotions in the industry.
“We welcome the latest directive issued by the DRAP to increase transparency and provide the details of expenditures on promotional activities by pharmaceutical companies,” Executive Director of the Pharma Bureau, Ayesha Tammy Haq, said in a statement. She stated that she hoped these steps would lead to more ethical promotional practices in Pakistan and would also urge the need to finalize guidelines for ethical interactions by the medical profession and the DRAP.
Haq added that that the Pharma Bureau has over the last three years proactively arranged seminars on ethical marketing practices and guidelines, most recently in December 2012 in Lahore. This seminar was attended by a large number of professionals from the industry, doctors, regulators, health care providers and consumer marketing practices as well as US ‘Sunshine representatives’ participated and suggested their proposals for the improvements in the ethical marketing practices in Pakistan.
The Drug Authority’s policies and practices would serve to make the Pharma Bureau’s efforts more consistent and uniformly effective. She added that the need for developing and putting such a mechanism in place is long overdue and the DRAP must consider how this can be made to deter malpractices, keeping patient interests the top priority.
She also pointed out “We would like to welcome the development of consistent guidelines on pharmaceutical promotion and enforcement of ethical code of pharmaceutical practices at the national level by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA).” Haq added that the same should be equally implemented and followed by all the national and multinational pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan.
International Transparency Initiatives
During the past few months, we have provided updates of the Sunshine Act taking hold globally. Payments to healthcare professionals are set to become more transparent throughout Europe and many other countries worldwide. All members of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) have agreed to publish details of payments to doctors and healthcare institutions in 2016. Here is a list of our recent coverage of international disclosure laws:
British Pharmaceutical Payments
Canadian Media Recommends “US-Style Sunshine”
Ireland Scrutinizes Doctors’ Speaker Fees
The 2014 International Compliance Congress spoke to transparency laws taking hold in India and Latin American. We will be publishing coverage of this conference in the coming weeks.