Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19373

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Report

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals
PhRMA.org 2010 July 8
http://www.phrma.org/about/principles-guidelines/code-interactions-healthcare-professionals

Full text:

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents research-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Our members develop and market new medicines to enable patients to live longer and healthier lives.

Ethical relationships with healthcare professionals are critical to our mission of helping patients by developing and marketing new medicines. An important part of achieving this mission is ensuring that healthcare professionals have the latest, most accurate information available regarding prescription medicines, which play an ever-increasing role in patient healthcare. This document focuses on our interactions with healthcare professionals that relate to the marketing of our products.

Appropriate marketing of medicines ensures that patients have access to the products they need and that the products are used correctly for maximum patient benefit. Our relationships with healthcare professionals are critical to achieving these goals because they enable us to –

inform healthcare professionals about the benefits and risks of our products to help advance appropriate patient use,
provide scientific and educational information,
support medical research and education, and
obtain feedback and advice about our products through consultation with medical experts.
In interacting with the medical community, we are committed to following the highest ethical standards as well as all legal requirements. We are also concerned that our interactions with healthcare professionals not be perceived as inappropriate by patients or the public at large. This Code is to reinforce our intention that our interactions with healthcare professionals are professional exchanges designed to benefit patients and to enhance the practice of medicine. The Code is based on the principle that a healthcare professional’s care of patients should be based, and should be perceived as being based, solely on each patient’s medical needs and the healthcare professional’s medical knowledge and experience.

Therefore, PhRMA adopts this updated and enhanced voluntary code on relationships with U.S. healthcare professionals. This Code reflects and builds upon the standards and principles set forth in its predecessor, the PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals that took effect on July 1, 2002. Like the 2002 edition, this Code addresses interactions with respect to marketed products and related pre-launch activities. PhRMA member companies’ relationships with clinical investigators and other individuals and entities as they relate to the clinical research process are addressed in the PhRMA Principles on Conduct of Clinical Trials and Communication of Clinical Trial Results.

The updated PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals took effect in January 2009.