Transfers of Value – Use of ‘Legitimate Interests’ as the legal basis for disclosure of payments made to healthcare professionals

Member companies of the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA), which represents the research based pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, have been publicly disclosing payments (Transfers of Value; specifically) to healthcare professionals (HCPs) and healthcare organisations (HCOs) at www.transfersofvalue.ie since June 2016.

Transfers of Value cover such areas as research and development, donations and grants (including medical education and unrestricted educational grants), consultancy fees, registration fees or travel costs to attend an international medical congress.

The IPU have received communication from the IPHA in relation to disclosure levels for Transfers of Value to healthcare professionals. A copy of the letter from the IPHA is available here. The detail is quite technical so we are hoping the summary below might be helpful.

The IPHA is making IPU members aware that payments such as Transfers of Value to Healthcare Professionals such as Pharmacists will be made public going forward without necessarily asking for the consent of individual pharmacists in each case. Traditionally, informed consent was sought from the Healthcare Professional first, before disclosing the payment. Instead of asking for their consent, the idea in future would be to use the Legitimate Interest of the companies as the legal basis for disclosing the payments. The HC Professional can object to that although they would need to justify a reason for not agreeing to the disclosure of payments to them. This justification may not necessarily be accepted by the company in question, and so then it could be the case that the payment would still be disclosed.

This is quite a technical area and we will strive to keep you informed. We have sought a copy of the Legitimate Interest Assessment which the IPHA have conducted, for the IPU’s internal review.

Useful Links

IPHA letter Re: Increased transparency in the disclosure of payments to healthcare professionals

If any member wishes to contact us to discuss this further, please email susan.odwyer@ipu.ie