Abstract
The pharmaceutical industry is known for investing heavily in promotions targeted at healthcare professionals (HCPs). Governments around the world try to regulate unwanted promotional practices in different ways. Where binding laws are in place in the U.S.A., European governments favor self-regulation. The purpose of this research is the evaluation of the Middle East and Africa Code of Promotional Practices (MEACPP) as a preliminary draft and its implications. Our paper fills a research gap by looking into the perceptions of the parties involved, analyzing their interests, and predicting possible outcomes. We used a mixed-method approach. Interviews were conducted with pharmaceutical companies and associations; while a questionnaire was administered to HCPs. Our findings suggest that all parties are in favor of more transparency. However, when it comes to disclosing the received financial support, the HCPs are hesitant. An estimated 20% would be willing to fully disclose their received benefits, which is in line with their European colleagues. Multinational pharmaceutical companies follow their own in-house standards and fear being at a competitive disadvantage when local companies can promote their drugs without any strings attached. MEA pharmaceutical companies do not see the potential benefits of analyzing the publicly available data to identify key opinion leaders (KOLs). The limitation of our research is the fact that the MEACPP has not been implemented yet and survey results are therefore based on expectations rather than real events.
Highlights
Most people would agree that corruption is a bad thing
The pharmaceutical industry is doing just that by incentivizing healthcare professionals (HCP) such as doctors, and healthcare organizations (HCOs) such as hospitals, to prescribe their drugs
A study from ProPublica found that HCPs who accepted payments in 2014 were two to three times more likely to prescribe high rates of brand-name drugs compared with others (Jones and Ornstein 2016)
Summary
The pharmaceutical industry is doing just that by incentivizing healthcare professionals (HCP) such as doctors, and healthcare organizations (HCOs) such as hospitals, to prescribe their drugs. A study from ProPublica found that HCPs who accepted payments in 2014 were two to three times more likely to prescribe high rates of brand-name drugs compared with others (Jones and Ornstein 2016). Dejong et al (2016) found that receipt of sponsored hospitality was associated with an increased rate of prescribing brand-named medicine. The global pharmaceutical’s market is forecasted to have a value of US $1294 billion by 2021, which is an increase of 36.8% since 2016 (Global Pharmaceuticals Industry 2017). The U.S.A. accounts for around 40% of the global pharmaceutical’s market value, while the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are around 5%
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