The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) recently published 2013 aggregate totals of industry payments made to doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. Transparency became a requirement when ABPI members voted in 2011 to amend their Code of Practice to help increase transparency of working practices between Pharma and healthcare professionals and increase trust. ABPI will publish payments to individually named healthcare professionals in 2016.
The report showed that Pharma companies in the UK paid healthcare professionals around £38.5m—$64 millions—for sponsorship and support during 2013. This is lower than the same period in 2012, which was £40m. Click here for our article on 2012 payments.
This reduction parallels ProPublica’s recent report on US physician speaker fees, which fell greatly from 2011 to 2012.
Stephen Whitehead, ABPI Chief Executive, said:
“One eighth of world’s most popular prescription medicines were developed in the UK as a result of collaboration with healthcare professionals. We know that our responsibility for medicines extends beyond sale and purchase and it would be wrong for us to develop medicines in isolation. The industry works hand in hand with healthcare professionals to ensure that our discoveries and innovations bring the best possible outcomes for patients, and working in partnership has helped the industry listen to clinical expertise and develop medicines which can be life-saving for patients.”
“Individual disclosure is an important step we are now preparing for. The changes are part of the industry’s commitment to enhance transparency around these relationships, and are a response to recognizing, and wanting to address, the high expectations of stakeholders in this area. We hope this will allow us to foster greater trust between the medical community, industry and patients.”
According to ABPI’s website, “ABPI is a British healthcare trade association with 150 members, who represent large, medium and small organizations, made up of innovative research-based biopharmaceutical companies, research organizations and those with an interest in the pharmaceutical industry operating in the UK.” Click here for a full member list.
While ABPI’s most recent data covers aggregate payments, they are working on a searchable, centrally-hosted register for payments from industry to individual healthcare professionals in 2016. This will follow the United States’ Physician Payments Sunshine Act searchable database, scheduled for late 2014/early 2015. Regarding the ABPI database, Whitehead noted:
“Working in partnership [with industry] will enable us to develop a single user friendly platform that is transparent and accessible. This is an ambitious project, but a critical one, and I am fully confident it will help address concerns about the relationship between healthcare professionals and industry while ensuring collaborative working that benefits patients can continue.”