GSK publishes transfer of value report

GSK has published its first report disclosing individual transfer of value to healthcare professionals in line with Medicine Australia’s Code of Conduct.  GSK believes that disclosure will help create a better understanding about how the pharmaceutical industry partners and collaborates with healthcare professionals, and therefore increase confidence in the way that industry and the healthcare profession works together.  We encourage all stakeholders and suppliers to join Medicines Australia companies in publishing transfers of value

The importance of industry collaboration with HCPs

Cooperation between pharmaceutical companies, regulators, healthcare professionals, healthcare organisations and patients, is essential for the sustainable improvement of healthcare.  These relationships have helped deliver numerous innovative new medicines and changed the way many diseases impact on our lives. 

Healthcare professionals have always been and will always remain valuable partners for GSK. As experts in their field, they provide us with first hand scientific and medical knowledge and unique insights into patient care. This partnership is fundamental to the progression of medical science, helping to meet disparate patient and public health needs.

Supporting greater transparency in Australia

GSK was the first pharmaceutical company in Australia to make public the aggregate amount spent on grants, donations and sponsorships with healthcare professionals and related organisations.

The Medicines Australia Code of Conduct builds on this initiative, as part of an evolution towards greater transparency.  Member companies now disclose the transfers of value they make to healthcare professionals in connection with prescription medicines, on an individual named basis if a healthcare professional provides consent.  This will include, for example, sponsorship for travel and registration fees to attend medical congresses, HCP consultancy fees for speaker arrangements or for participating in advisory boards.

Our approach to Medicines Australia disclosure

Over the past decade we have challenged the traditional industry model by being first to increase transparency around clinical trial data (including being first to sign up to the All Trials Campaign) and being first to abolish individual sales targets for medical representatives.

It is with this mindset that we have implemented the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct. We have applied a “no disclosure consent, no contract” principle to enable and drive disclosure at the individual level. In practice this means:

• Where individual named disclosure is required under the Medicines Australia Code, we sought the necessary consent from each healthcare professional with whom we work.
• We will not work with healthcare professionals where consent is not given. Where consent is given but subsequently withdrawn we will not then work with those healthcare professionals on activities covered by individual disclosure for a period of one year.

Going beyond transparency

We are committed to going beyond the requirements set out in the Medicines Australia Code by continuing to make additional, industry leading changes to our business model. Some of the most recent changes include incentivising our medical representatives on the basis of customer service and scientific understanding rather than individual sales targets.

As of January 2016, we also stopped paying healthcare professionals to speak about our prescription medicines or disease areas to audiences who can prescribe or influence prescribing.

Instead, our own medics have more time to share their expertise and answer questions from other doctors. We are also developing new digital and real-time applications to improve delivery of medical information to doctors, and are providing arms length funding to independent bodies to provide education.

We will continue to work with and pay doctors for non-promotional activities. This includes conducting clinical research and seeking advice on the clinical relevance and appropriate communication of the results of our research, as well as identifying new research areas.

These interactions are an essential part of how we ensure medicines we develop meet patients’ needs.

What will this mean for patients?

We believe our continued commitment to greater transparency and our new approach to working with healthcare professionals will provide greater confidence that industry is acting in the best interests of patients and an improved understanding about the importance of collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession.

Download our 1 October 2015 – 30 April 2016 report. (PDF-258KB)

Download our 1 October 2015 - 30 April 2016 report (CSV)

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Additional notes

GlaxoSmithKline - is a global research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare company. Since 1886 we have delivered the highest quality medicines, vaccines and over-the-counter healthcare products to Australians while investing in local research and providing skilled jobs. For further information please visit www.au.gsk.com.

GSK has two manufacturing facilities in Australia. Pharmaceutical products are manufactured in Boronia on the outskirts of Melbourne. It is one of GSK’s largest sterile facilities globally and includes two Relenza lines and innovative blow-fill-seal technology.

The GSK site at Ermington, in north-western Sydney, manufactures consumer products.