Farmaindustria commits to transparency on disclosure of transfers of value to health professionals

At its Annual Assembly last week, Spanish trade group Farmaindustria gave the green light to the amendment of the Code of Practice by which all companies adhered to it will inform healthcare professionals that transfers of value made from January 1, 2017 (to be disclosed in 2018) derived from their collaboration as far as education, scientific-professional meetings and services provision will be disclosed in an individual manner.

This evolution from the Code is endorsed by a report released in April by the Spanish Data Protection Agency which stated the legitimacy of the disclosure on an individual basis is supported by the currently in force European legal framework (Directive 95/46/EC), so that it will only be necessary to inform healthcare professionals that each transfer of value will be disclosed without being mandatory for the professional to sign a previous individual consent, which has been the process followed up to now for data to be published in June 2016 (corresponding to 2015) and 2017 (corresponding to 2016).

This is the reason why data from 2015 and 2016, in the case of healthcare professionals, will be disclosed in an individual or aggregated manner. The reason is the already mentioned previous individual consent which the industry has been requesting to healthcare professionals during this time, complying with the requirements of the Spanish Data Protection Law. Said consent could be signed by the professional on a voluntary basis. Thus, in the cases in which said consent was not granted the information will be disclosed in an aggregated manner.