Canadian industry pursues voluntary disclosure route

Ten leading pharmaceutical companies in Canada have agreed to reveal how much they pay doctors for services or to fund charitable, educational and scientific activities.

The disclosures are being made under the auspices of the country’s industry trade group Innovative Medicines Canada, which says it wants to promote high ethical standards and enhance trust.

Three aggregate figures will be published, showing: payments to physicians for services such as speaking, funding for organizations for charitable, educational or scientific activities, and payments to cover doctors’ expenses to attend events.

Critics have argued that the voluntary scheme does not go far enough. To promote real transparency and accountability, they say, more detail on individual payments is required.

Under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, a key plank of former US President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform program, all payments to doctors and teaching hospitals must be disclosed. This information must include the name and address of payees, the amount, and the reason for payment.

Advocacy group Open Pharma is calling for Canada to enact a similar law. The group says it wants “government to mandate the public disclosure of all payments and transfers of value from the pharmaceutical industry to individual prescribers.”

In Europe, the pharmaceutical industry has spearheaded its own disclosure scheme. Under its Disclosure Code, members of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations must publicly disclose payments made to doctors and organizations, in certain categories. Around 1,900 companies are members of the trade federation.

The 10 companies currently involved in the Canadian scheme are subsidiaries of AbbVie, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Merck & Co, Novartis and Purdue Pharma.

In all, these companies disclosed that they paid out more than $48 million in 2016.