10 key messages

The EFPIA Disclosure Code – 10 key messages

 

Pharmaceutical Industry Working with Healthcare professionals

 

1. Through the successful implementation of the Disclosure Code, we can improve the relationship between industry, healthcare organisations and professionals (HCOs and HCPs) in a way that ultimately benefits the people that all three of these stakeholders aim to serve – patients.

 

2. Collaborations and partnerships between HCPs/HCOs and industry are subject to stringent legislation and require that all parties respect high ethical standards. EFPIA’s Disclosure Code will enhance transparency around these relationships, and ensure the industry’s work with HCPs and HCOs is well understood by healthcare stakeholders and the public.

 

3. As the primary point of contact with patients, the medical profession can offer invaluable and expert knowledge on patients’ behaviour and management of diseases. It is therefore essential that the industry interact regularly with HCPs and HCOs. This plays a big part in informing the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to improve patient care and treatment.

 

4. Although they each have distinct roles in the healthcare industry, healthcare practitioners, healthcare organisations and the pharmaceutical industry are all committed to a common goal: improving outcomes for patients. These groups work together towards this aim, and that the relationship between the three is supported by a robust and transparent framework.

 

Integrity and fair compensation

 

5. The integrity of the decision of a healthcare professional to prescribe or recommend a medicine is one of the pillars of the healthcare system. In recent years there has been growing public interest in the pharmaceutical industry’s relationships with HCPs and HCOs. Critically, the public want to know that such relationships do not influence clinical decisions and that they can trust their HCP to recommend, administer or purchase appropriate care and treatments based solely on clinical evidence and experience.

 

6. Healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations should be fairly compensated for the legitimate expertise and services they provide to the industry.

 

Patient and public benefit through disclosure

 

7. By creating greater transparency around these relationships, the EFPIA Disclosure Code aims to strengthen the legitimate relationship between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals by making these better understood by patients and other stakeholders.

 

8. The successful implementation of this initiative depends largely on the industry and HCP community working in partnership. We wish to ensure that our interactions with the profession are well understood and accepted by healthcare stakeholders and the public at large. Only by working together can industry and HCPs successfully enhance transparency and public trust in our mutual relationship.

 

9. The pharmaceutical industry recognises that it has a responsibility to support a fair and open partnership in which a key proponent is to show leadership in advancing responsible transparency. The industry supports measures that will enhance relationships between industry, healthcare practitioners, patients and citizens at large and advance public health. As an industry, we understand the need to provide a well-managed framework for collaboration for these relations to be as transparent as possible.

 

1. The pharmaceutical industry’s collaboration with healthcare professionals and organisations requires a well-regulated, ongoing scientific dialogue in both directions. This is fundamental to ensuring a positive working relationship that best serves the interests of patients.