Financial Relationships Between Pharmaceutical Companies and Internal Medicine Societies

This cross-sectional study uses payment data publicly disclosed by pharmaceutical companies affiliated with the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association to describe their financial relationships with the subspecialty societies of the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine.


Introduction
Professional medical societies play essential roles in delineating health care standards, serving a vital function in establishing and progressing the benchmarks for medical practice.Many societies receive funding from pharmaceutical companies to support their research, educational, and academic activities. 1 However, financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies could introduce biases in decision-making and recommendations endorsed by societies. 2It is paramount for societies to manage financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies to preserve their independence and integrity. 3,4In Japan, substantial financial relationships exist between pharmaceutical companies and individual board members of internal medicine subspecialty societies of the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine (JSIM). 4However, information regarding the financial relationships between these societies and the pharmaceutical industry in Japan is limited.

Methods
This cross-sectional study describes the financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and all societies under JSIM by using payment data publicly disclosed by the companies affiliated with the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA).The JSIM encompasses 15 subspecialty societies, all of which were included in this study.The JPMA mandates that its member companies disclose their payments to these societies on each company's website.Because this study was an analysis of publicly available data of nonhuman participants, institutional review board review was not required in accordance with Ethical Guidelines for Medical Research Involving Human Participants at Tohoku University.This study adhered to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guideline.
We extracted data on all payments made to the 15 societies between 2017 and 2020 by companies affiliated with the JPMA from the publicly accessible database 5 and the company websites (for payments in 2021). 6Descriptive analyses of the payment data were conducted from December 2023 to February 2024.Payment amounts were converted to US dollars using the 2021 average monthly exchange rate of ¥109.795 per $1.All statistical analyses were performed using Excel, version 17.0 (Microsoft Corporation).
Of the 15 societies for which data were obtained, the Japanese Society of Hematology received the highest payments, totaling $12.0 million (13.9% of all payments) from 2017 to 2021 (Figure).The

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Discussion
This cross-sectional study revealed that all 15 leading internal medicine subspecialty societies in Japan received a total of $86.1 million from 2017 to 2021.These payment amounts were more extensive than those reported for the 16 Royal Colleges in the United Kingdom (approximately $11 million from 2015 to 2022). 1 In Japan, pharmaceutical companies are permitted to sponsor professional medical societies, assisting in organizing academic conferences where they sometimes present seminars on their products, known as luncheon seminars.Such relationships have raised Table.Payments From Pharmaceutical Companies to 15 Internal Medicine Subspecialty Societies in Japan Figure.Payments by Pharmaceutical Companies to Japanese Medical Professional Societies, 2017 to 2021 b Expenses of cosponsored conferences cover the fees for booth or space rental at societies' conferences, seminars on companies' products, and advertisement fees in the societies' journals and conferences.cDesignatedforspecific conferences or meetings of the professional medical societies.dPaymentsfor societies' research projects, educational programs, and paper awards sponsored by the companies.ePayments to the main body of professional medical societies without specifying the donation's purpose.