Evaluating the transparency of pharmaceutical company disclosure of payments to patient organisations in the UK

Rickard, Emily; Ozierański, Piotr; Mulinari, Shai

doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.08.007

Cited by 21 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Finally, considering payment descriptions could reveal further discrepancies, including different payment goals reported by donors and recipients; it could also identify payments made via third parties (eg, public relations companies 43 ) or benefiting patient organisations indirectly. 15 CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS Although the full scale of under-reporting of industry payments to patient organisations remains unknown, it concerns both donors and recipients, and involves a considerable number and value of payments. Our findings put a question mark over the key claim that-at least in their current form-publicly available payment disclosures effectively address concerns about COIs resulting from industry payments.…”

Section: Principal Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One exception is a recent UK study which identified companies not disclosing payments to patient organisations being mentioned in their annual accounts as donors. 15 Another UK study found discrepancies between annual accounts of some patient organisations contributing to health technology assessment in England and drug company payment disclosures. 21 Similarly, discrepancies were found between sponsorships reported on patient organisation and drug company websites in Italy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Under-reported relationship: a comparative study of pharmaceutical industry and patient organisation payment disclosures in the UK (2012–2016)

Ozierański

Csanádi²,

Rickard

et al. 2020

BMJ Open

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ObjectivesTo examine the under-reporting of pharmaceutical company payments to patient organisations by donors and recipients.DesignComparative descriptive analysis of payments disclosed on drug company and charity regulator websites.SettingUK.Participants87 donors (drug companies) and 425 recipients (patient organisations) reporting payments in 2012–2016.Main outcome measuresNumber and value of payments reported by donors and recipients; differences in reported payments from/to the same donors and recipients; payments reported in either dataset but not the other one; agreement between donor–recipient ties established by payments; overlap between donor and recipient lists and, respectively, industry and patient organisation data.ResultsOf 87 donors, 63 (72.4%) reported payments but 84 (96.6%) were mentioned by recipients. Although donors listed 425 recipients, only 200 (47.1%) reported payments. The number and value of payments reported by donors were 259.8% and 163.7% greater than those reported by recipients, respectively. The number of donors with matching payment numbers and values in both datasets were 3.4% and 0.0%, respectively; for recipients these figures were 7.8% and 1.9%. There were 24 and 3 donors missing from industry and patient organisation data during the entire study period, representing 38.1% and 3.6% of those in the respective datasets. The share of donor–recipient ties in which industry and patient organisation data agreed about donors and recipients was 38.9% and 68.4% in each dataset, respectively. Of 63 donors reporting payments, only 3 (4.8%) had their recipient lists fully overlapping with patient organisation data. Of 200 recipients reporting industry funding, 102 (51.0%) had their donor lists fully overlapping with industry data.ConclusionsBoth donors and recipients under-reported payments. Existing donor and recipient disclosure systems cannot manage potential conflicts of interest associated with industry payments. Increased standardisation could limit the under-reporting by each side but only an integrated donor–recipient database could eliminate it.

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Section: Principal Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under-reported relationship: a comparative study of pharmaceutical industry and patient organisation payment disclosures in the UK (2012–2016)

Ozierański

Csanádi²,

Rickard

et al. 2020

BMJ Open

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“…One response to these concerns has been to enhance the transparency of financial relationships between the two sides [22]. This is part of a global policy trend in which transparency, primarily understood as public disclosures, is applied to individuals' and organisations' ties to pharmaceutical companies [23,24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result of this and similar transparency initiatives elsewhere in the world, there has been a spur in research on pharmaceutical company funding of patient organisations in the United Kingdom (UK) [4,22,26], Australia [27] and United States [28] using industry disclosure data. Industry disclosures have clear advantages over other data sources, such as surveys of patient organisations [14,29] or their websites [30,31], due to their greater coverage and standardisation [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sweden has a history of pharmaceutical industry self-regulation [32] and a large patient organisation community: roughly 1 in 20 Swedes are affiliated to a patient organisation [33]. Another reason for selecting Sweden for this case study is that the Swedish pharmaceutical industry trade group (Läkemedelsindustriföreningen, LIF) has gone further than trade groups in other European countries that deem it sufficient to disclose payments on the sponsoring company's webpage, and which in the UK was shown to make it near-impossible to establish the scope of industry involvement for any patient organisation [22,26]. In contrast-and consistent with recommendations from the UK [22]-since 2005 LIF has a centralised and searchable (albeit not downloadable) database where companies upload reports for every payment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Five years of pharmaceutical industry funding of patient organisations in Sweden: Cross-sectional study of companies, patient organisations and drugs

et al. 2020

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Background Many patient organisations collaborate with drug companies, resulting in concerns about commercial agendas influencing patient advocacy. We contribute to an international body of knowledge on patient organisation-industry relations by considering payments reported in the industry's centralised 'collaboration database' in Sweden. We also investigate possible commercial motives behind the funding by assessing its association with drug commercialisation. Methods Our primary data source were 1,337 payment reports from 2014-2018. After extraction and coding, we analysed the data descriptively, calculating the number, value and distribution of payments for various units of analysis, e.g. individual companies, diseases and payment goals. The association between drug commercialisation and patient organisation funding was assessed by, first, the concordance between leading companies marketing drugs in specific diseases and their funding of corresponding patient organisations and, second, the correlation between new drugs in broader condition areas and payments to corresponding patient organisations. Results 46 companies reported paying €6,449.224 (median €2,411; IQR €1,024-4,569) to 77 patient organisations, but ten companies provided 67% of the funding. Small payments dominated, many of which covered costs of events organised by patient organisations. An association existed between drug commercialisation and industry funding. Companies supported patient organisations in diseases linked to their drug portfolios, with the top 3 condition areas in terms of funding-cancer; endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders; and infectious and parasitic disorders-accounting for 63% of new drugs and 56% of the funding.

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Does the transparency of sustainability reports matter?Aquantitative assessment

Demartini,

Beretta,

Larisch

2024

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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Despite the recognized advantages of sustainability disclosure and transparency in reducing information asymmetries, the quality of sustainability reports often falls short. Measuring sustainability disclosure transparency is challenging due to its multidimensional nature, necessitating a comprehensive approach. Moreover, the impact of sustainability reporting transparency on firm performance remains ambiguous. Therefore, this study examines 177 reports from companies listed in the Dow Jones sustainability index (DJSI) World index, manually collecting information on transparency indicators and subdimensions. Grounded on the disclosure, clarity, and accuracy (DCA) framework introduced by Schnackenberg and Tomlinson, a factor analysis is conducted to construct the transparency index, followed by testing research hypotheses using a linear regression model via ordinary least squares (OLS). By providing a quantitative assessment of sustainability report transparency, this study investigates its influence on firm performance. Our findings support existing research linking firm performance to the transparency of sustainability reports. Surprisingly, contrary to expectations, our study reveals that increased transparency efforts are associated with lower firm performance.

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Evaluating the transparency of pharmaceutical company disclosure of payments to patient organisations in the UK

Cited by 21 publications

References 26 publications

Under-reported relationship: a comparative study of pharmaceutical industry and patient organisation payment disclosures in the UK (2012–2016)

Under-reported relationship: a comparative study of pharmaceutical industry and patient organisation payment disclosures in the UK (2012–2016)

Five years of pharmaceutical industry funding of patient organisations in Sweden: Cross-sectional study of companies, patient organisations and drugs

Does the transparency of sustainability reports matter?Aquantitative assessment

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