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. 2022 Jun 16;19(12):7417.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19127417.

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

Anju Murayama  1   2 , Sae Kamamoto  1   3 , Hiroaki Saito  4 , Kohki Yamada  1 , Divya Bhandari  1 , Iori Shoji  1 , Hanano Mamada  1 , Moe Kawashima  1 , Erika Yamashita  1 , Eiji Kusumi  5 , Toyoaki Sawano  6 , Binaya Sapkota  7 , Tetsuya Tanimoto  1   8 , Akihiko Ozaki  1   9
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Pharmaceutical Payments to Japanese Board-Certified Infectious Disease Specialists: A Four-Year Retrospective Analysis of Payments from 92 Pharmaceutical Companies between 2016 and 2019

Anju Murayama et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

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.

Keywords: Japan; board-certified infectious disease specialists; conflicts of interest; pharmaceutical payments; physician payment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Saito received personal fees from TAIHO Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. outside the scope of the submitted work. Kusumi received personal fees from Otsuka Pharmaceutical outside the scope of the submitted work. Ozaki and Tanimoto received personal fees from Medical Network Systems outside the scope of the submitted work. Tanimoto also received personal fees from Bionics Co. Ltd., outside the scope of the submitted work. Regarding non-financial conflict of interest among the study authors, all are engaged in ongoing research examining financial and non-financial conflict of interest among healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies in Japan and the United States. Some of references in this study were self-cited by the study authors in order to explain the study context and rationale as well as to compare the findings with other studies. The other authors have no example of conflict of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Total payment by company.
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