Overview and transparency of non-research payments to healthcare organizations and healthcare professionals from pharmaceutical companies in Japan: Analysis of payment data in 2016

Transparency Is Not Enough: How Can We Improve the Management of Financial Conflicts of Interest Between Pharma and Healthcare Sectors?

“…Such payments can also jeopardize public trust in healthcare sectors by causing scientific misconduct and other scandals, like the Diovan Scandal in Japan and the Mediator Scandal in France. The presence of FCOIs between Pharma and healthcare sectors has been well described mainly in high‐income countries, including the United States, 2 various European Countries, 4 Australia, and Japan 1,5 . Consequently, many countries have developed frameworks to minimize pharmaceutical payments' influence, of which transparency has always been a key concept of their regulation.…”

“…The Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA) set transparency guidelines for its member companies in 2011, and its members have voluntarily disclosed payments to healthcare organizations and healthcare professionals since 2013. However, frameworks to disclose payments have not been straightforward or comparable, increasing criticisms and demands for improvements 5 . For example, the format of payment data and degree of disclosures differ significantly among reporting pharmaceutical companies, and the data are available only for each company in its website without a comprehensive database prepared by the JPMA as in the United Kingdom and Australia 5 .…”

Pharmaceutical Company Payments to Japanese Government Drug Regulation Committee Members

“…The other types of payment, such as research funding or academic donations, were not examined in this study because the data were not included in our database. 18 Thereafter, we calculated the proportions of individuals who received payments of ¥500,000 ($4,600) or more, and ¥5,000,000 ($46,000) or more. The set values of ¥500,000 ($4,600) and ¥5,000,000 ($46,000) are figures adopted by the PAFSC to identify problematic FCOIs; those receiving a payment of ¥500,000 ($4,600) or more and less than ¥5,000,000 ($46,000) from a single pharmaceutical company are not allowed to participate in decision making concerning approval of a specific drug related to the company making the payment; and those receiving a payment of ¥5,000,000 ($46,000) or more from a single company are not allowed to participate in the whole meeting where the deliberations of the drug related to the company is conducted.…”

“…We calculated the extent of payments from pharmaceutical companies in 2016 for lecturing, writing, consulting, and other work made to individual PAFSC members. The other types of payment, such as research funding or academic donations, were not examined in this study because the data were not included in our database 18 . Thereafter, we calculated the proportions of individuals who received payments of ¥500,000 ($4,600) or more, and ¥5,000,000 ($46,000) or more.…”

Response to “Strictness and Transparency in Approval Process of Medical Products: Japanese Situation”

“…Indeed, worrisome FCOIs are prevalent in the Japanese medical field overall. We previously showed that the Executive Board members of Professional Medical Associations and Clinical Practice Guideline Committee members received significant payments from Pharma, according to data voluntarily published by companies belonging to the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA) 2,3 . However, as there is no unified and accessible database like the US Open Payments Data, we painstakingly collected data and created an open‐access database that covers consulting, writing, and lecture fees for 2016 and 2017.…”