Since the end of June 2016, Daiichi Sankyo Belgium is disclosing payments made to healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations, such as grants, financial support to attend educational meetings, speaker fees, and fees for consultancy and the provision of input at advisory boards.
The EFPIA Disclosure code requires member companies to document and disclose the transfers of value it makes, directly or indirectly, to healthcare professionals (HCPs) and healthcare organisations (HCOs).
By transfers of value we mean payments such as donations and grants made to healthcare organisations and, in the case of HCPs, fees for services or financial support to attend educational events such as medical congresses.
When published the disclosures include the name of the HCP or HCO, and the total amounts of value received by that individual or organisation in the previous calendar year. This figure is broken down into categories of activity. For HCOs specifically, there are two categories: donations & grants and contribution to costs related to Events (sponsorship agreements). For HCPs and HCOs the categories are contributions to costs related to events such as registration fees, travel and accommodation for attending medical congresses, etc.) and fees for services and consultancy (for example, agreement for delivering clinical trials, speaker fees, consultancy).
We disclose both direct and indirect transfers of value in order to ensure maximum transparency.
Bringing greater transparency to this, already well-regulated, vital relationship between pharmaceutical companies on the one hand and the HCPs and HCOs on the other hand is about strengthening the basis for collaboration in the future. Society has increasingly high expectations for transparency, none more so than in healthcare. We want to ensure we meet those expectations going forward.
Payments made for R&D non-clinical studies, clinical trials and non- interventional studies prospective in nature will also be disclosed in aggregate.
Under the Belgian Sunshine Act (chapter 1 of title 3 of the Law of 18 December 2016 regarding various provisions on health, published in the Belgian Official Journal of 27 December 2016) and the RD Sunshine Act (Royal Decree of 14 June 2017 executing the Sunshine Act, published in the Belgian Official Journal of 23 June 2017), the obligation of transparency has been introduced in Belgian legislation.
The obligation of transparency imposes amongst others pharmaceutical and medical devices companies, both Belgian and foreign, to document and annually publish the premiums and benefits that they grant directly or indirectly to healthcare professionals, healthcare organisations or patient organisations ("beneficiaries").
If the beneficiary has a practice or a registered office in Belgium, the documentation and publication of the premiums and benefits must be done in the Belgian Transparency Register of betransparent.be (regardless of where the company is established).
The Belgian Transparency Register can be consulted here.
In Luxembourg there is no legal obligation to publish premiums and benefits, but Daiichi Sankyo – like all members of the APL – publishes its data on an annual basis. The link to any publication for the GDL can be found here, both for us and our competitors.
If you have any questions regarding transparency at Daiichi Sankyo Belgium, please contact us via legal@daiichi-sankyo.be.
