Pharmaceutical Payments to Japanese Board-Certified Infectious Disease Specialists: A Four-Year Retrospective Analysis of Payments from 92 Pharmaceutical Companies between 2016 and 2019

Abstract

Backgrounds: Conflict of interest with pharmaceutical companies is one of the most concerned issues in infectious diseases. However, there is a lack of whole picture of detailed payments in Japan. Methods: This retrospective study assessed financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and all infectious disease specialists board-certified by the Japanese Association for Infectious Disease, using publicly disclosed payment data from 92 major pharmaceutical companies. Descriptive analyses were conducted for the payments. Payment trends were examined by the generalized estimating equations. Results: Of 1614 board-certified infection disease specialists, 1055 (65.4%) received a total of $17,784,070 payments, corresponding to 21,680 contracts between 2016 and 2019. The mean ± SD and median (interquartile range: IQR) were $16,857 ± $45,010 and $3183 ($938–$11,250) in payments. All board executive members of Japanese Association of Infectious Disease received higher payments averaging $163,792. There were no significant changes in payments per specialist (annual change rate: −1.4% [95% CI: −4.7–2.3%], p = 0.48) and prevalence of specialists with payments (annual change rate: −1.4% [95% CI: −3.1–0.2%], p = 0.093) over the four years. Conclusion: There were substantial financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and board-certified infectious disease specialists in Japan. Furthermore, high ranked specialists such as those in the executive board had stronger financial ties with the companies.

Pharmaceutical money to Japanese board-certified dermatologists: A four-year retrospective analysis of personal payments from pharmaceutical companies between 2016 and 2019

“…17 Additionally, per-physician payments to dermatologists were also one of the lowest in Japan, followed by pediatric oncologists. [4][5][6]8 The reason for this lower payments may be explained by our limitation in data collection. We included only payments for lecturing, consulting, and writing purposes, and could not collect payments for more prevalent categories such as meals, travel and accommodations, and educations, which were widely made to dermatologists in the United States.…”

“…3 Due to this payment disclosure, we previously reported there were substantial and prevalent nancial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and physicians in several specialties including oncology, hematology, pediatrics, infectious diseases, and pulmonology in Japan. [4][5][6][7][8] These personal payments were often made to physicians in authoritative and in uential positions such as clinical practice guideline authors, 6,[9][10][11][12] society board members, 6,13 university professors, 6,8,14 and television expert commentators. 15 We also found that there was a pattern in recipient of personal payments by factors such as gender and regions.…”

Pharmaceutical Payments to Japanese Board‐Certified Head and Neck Surgeons Between 2016 and 2019

“…Average and median values were reported based on only HNSs receiving payment in each year, as in other studies. 8 , 15 , 16 , 23 , 24 Second, to evaluate payment concentration among the HNSs, the Gini index and the shares of the payment values per specialist were calculated, as performed previously 5 , 8 , 9 , 25 , 26 Third, to evaluate the trend between affiliations and positions, we used the robust adjustment. We also observed the affiliations and positions of HNSs who received more than $1000 continuously for 4 years.…”

“… 3 This payment disclosure enabled publications of the financial relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical companies with detailed amounts of payments in several specialties. 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 …”

Trend in Industry Payments to Rheumatologists in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic Between 2013 and 2021

“…The detailed methodology was described in our previous studies. 5,6 As the national emergency concerning the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in the US on March 13, 2020, we considered the period before and after March 2020 as before the pandemic and after the pandemic for the analysis, respectively. Payments for acquisitions, ownership or investment interest, debt forgiveness, long-term medical supply or device loan, and royalty or license were excluded from the monthly ITS analysis, as these payments were newly added in 2021 or only a small number of physicians received substantial payment amounts.…”