Pfizer's Disclosure of Payments to HCPs Frequently Asked Questions
Questions About Which Professionals We Work with and Why
- What health care professionals does Pfizer work with?
- Why does Pfizer work with health care professionals?
- How does Pfizer's work with health care professionals improve health and benefit patients?
Questions About Terminolgy We Use
Questions About Payments to Health Care Professionals
- Why does Pfizer pay health care providers and clinical investigators for these collaborations?
- Does Pfizer pay for meals?
- Does Pfizer pay for entertainment and trips?
- Does Pfizer provide health care professionals with non-educational gifts?
- Does Pfizer pay people to ghostwrite studies?
- Does Pfizer's payment to physicians influence their prescribing habits?
Questions About the Posting or Disclosure of Payment Data
- What details will Pfizer post about payments to U.S. health care professionals (HCPs) and when?
- Why is Pfizer including clinical trials in its disclosure?
- When will Pfizer post payments made to health care professionals?
- What steps will you take to ensure that the data you post is accurate?
- Will health care Professionals have the opportunity to review their data before it is posted?
What health care professionals does Pfizer work with?
We work with a variety of health care professionals, including people like:
- your doctor
- researchers
- scientists
- nurse practitioners
- physician's assistants and
- others
Why does Pfizer work with health care professionals?
At Pfizer, we're focused on improving your health. What we know about diseases and medicines changes every day. As a result, there is a lot of new information that health care professionals like your doctor must sift through and evaluate in order to provide you with the best care possible.
Pfizer provides your doctor with the latest information about our medicines. We also help set up discussions about diseases and treatments so that health care professionals, including your doctor, can learn from one another.
This information exchange works in two ways. Your doctor helps to improve our medicines by providing Pfizer with feedback about how our medicines work in real-world patient settings after being extensively studied prior to coming on the market. This can range from insights about how our medicines are dosed to how our medicines work when you are taking them with other medicines.
How does Pfizer's work with health care professionals improve health and benefit patients?
Pfizer's work with health care professionals and clinical investigators leads to valuable feedback, scientific insights and improved medicines and care for patients.
On the front lines of medicine and patient care, these professionals are uniquely placed to provide essential input and insight to ensure that our medicines meet the needs of patients and the health care community alike.
Their everyday experience provides "real world" information about use of our products.
Our ongoing relationships help the flow of information between industry and the health care system.
What is a principal investigator?
A principal investigator is the primary individual in charge of a Pfizer-sponsored or investigator-initiated research project.
Studying how a medicine works in people is one of the most important steps in the medicine research and development process. Pfizer spends years doing research in the laboratory and then in carefully controlled clinical studies with real people before a new medicine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory authorities around the world and made available to patients.
Health Care professionals are essential to clinical research -- designing and conducting studies about our medicines and treatment approaches both before and after a medicine is approved for use.
What are professional advisors?
Your health care professional may work with Pfizer as a professional advisor. This means he or she provides us with knowledge, insights, and advice on a range of topics from designing clinical research studies to marketing Pfizer's medicines.
For example, your doctor may be one among a group of doctors our marketers or development colleagues invite to review preliminary information about a medicine in development or to provide advice about treatment decisions, safety concerns, and areas of further study that would be helpful.
These roundtables can range from several hours to one or two days.
What are expert-led forums?
They are meetings led by health experts. Doctors and other health care professionals may work with Pfizer, as expert speakers, to promote our medicines and educate their peers about a health condition or one of our medicines.
This means he or she is an expert on certain diseases and is familiar with the latest treatments for patients.
Our expert speakers lead forums to help inform their peers (typically other doctors in their field) about Pfizer's medicines and how they might be used to treat patients.
Sometimes, Pfizer's expert speakers give talks to their peers about medicines and health conditions over lunch or at a dinner program, when doctors aren't busy seeing patients.
Why does Pfizer pay health care providers and clinical investigators for these collaborations?
Health Care providers and clinical investigators invest their time and energy in the valuable work they do for Pfizer.
Whether preparing for a speaking engagement or conducting research, these efforts are time consuming and make use of their considerable professional expertise.
Often the leading authorities in their fields, these professionals are compensated fairly for the work they do for Pfizer.
We have in place established Fair Market Value guidelines to ensure payments are fair and appropriate to the important work being done on our behalf. Pfizer has established a standard fair market value compensation schedule for services provided by health care professionals.
Our Fair Market Value methodology is based upon the particular health care professional's credentials and qualifications and the amount of time necessary to provide the requested service.
Does Pfizer pay for meals?
Since we may be taking time away from a health care professional's meal break, Pfizer may provide your doctor and her medical staff with a breakfast or lunch in the office during in-office meetings. Pfizer may also provide meals at expert-led forums. The cost of meals at expert-led forums are divided equally across all attendees, regardless of their actual consumption.
In our 2010 reporting, Pfizer will report the value of meals that exceed $25 or more per person if the aggregated value of meals and compensation is equal to or greater than $500.
In 2011, we will report all meals and compensation.
We do not pay the health care professionals for participating in these sessions.
Does Pfizer pay for entertainment and trips?
When your doctor must travel in the course of his work with Pfizer, we reimburse him for reasonable travel expenses, including food and transportation.
Pfizer does not reimburse for entertainment, vacations, or other non-business travel or for travel expenses for spouses or other companions should they accompany the doctor.
Does Pfizer provide health care professionals with non-educational gifts?
In the U.S., Pfizer does not give health care professionals non-educational items.
Educational items are limited to those with a value of less than $100.
Does Pfizer pay people to ghostwrite studies?
We have strict policies against ghostwriting articles on behalf of physicians.
Ghostwriting is defined as undisclosed assistance in writing an article, as described in ICMJE guidelines (International Conference of Medical Journal Editors). We follow those guidelines. In some cases, peer-review journals have additional guidelines which we follow as well.
It is important to note that Pfizer currently has policies in place to ensure that all editorial and financial support for a manuscript is disclosed.
We do not compensate clinical trial investigators for writing and submitting primary articles about Pfizer clinical trials to peer-reviewed journals.
In some cases we will compensate a technical medical writer to work under the direction of a clinical trial investigator and the technical writers' contributions are publicly disclosed in the acknowledgements section of the article.
If a writer meets the threshold for authorship, they are then added as an author.
Does Pfizer's payment to physicians influence their prescribing habits?
Pfizer does not work with or pay physicians as either an inducement or a reward for prescribing.
Pfizer selects its health care professional partners very carefully based upon their credentials, experience, commitment to patient interests, and unique abilities with respect to the work for which they are being compensated. Criteria for speakers, for example, include the ability to effectively communicate medical and scientific information.
What details will Pfizer post about payments to U.S. health care professionals (HCPs) and when?
We will begin posting the following data at 2 points in time:
In the first quarter of 2010:
- On July 1, 2009, we began capturing payment data to ensure that we are prepared to begin publicly reporting this data in the first quarter of 2010.
- Pfizer has committed to reporting payments, including meals and business related expenses greater than or equal to $25.
- Pfizer has also committed to reporting payments where the aggregate amount paid to an individual health care professional is greater than or equal to $500 in a calendar year.
In the first quarter of 2011:
- In the first quarter of 2011, Pfizer will begin reporting all payments, meals and reimbursable travel expenses, regardless of their individual or aggregate value.
- This means that we will begin capturing this information on an ongoing basis beginning on January 1, 2010.
We will disclose payments to:
- All practicing U.S. health care professionals who can prescribe medicines, including physicians, nurse practitioners and physician's assistants
- Major U.S. institutions for ongoing clinical trials
- All principal investigators and other entities for Phase I-IV clinical trials sponsored by Pfizer beginning on or after July 1, 2009
We will disclose payments for:
- Clinical development and commercial consulting
- Promotional speaking
- Phase I-IV clinical trials
- Investigator-initiated research
- Meals and business travel expenses that are greater than or equal to $25 in value
- Other non-educational items, provided by ex-U.S. entities, where permitted
Why is Pfizer including clinical trials in its disclosure?
Pfizer believes that reporting clinical trial payments will help the public understand the full breadth of the important collaborative work done by industry, academia and health care professionals to advance health.
Pfizer's plans reflect the spirit of recently proposed legislation in that it includes payments to U.S. practicing physicians and other U.S. health care professionals for speaking and consulting, as well as to principal investigators and institutions for Phase I-IV clinical trials sponsored by Pfizer.
Pfizer expects to report payments to major institutions for ongoing clinical trials and to principal investigators and all other entities for trials begun on or after July 1, 2009.
When will Pfizer post payments made to health care professionals?
Pfizer will begin posting payments made to health care professionals by March 31, 2010.
What steps will you take to ensure that the data you post is accurate?
We are committed to ensuring that the information we post is accurate and clearly outlines the nature of all payments.
We have an extensive quality control process in place to help make sure the data we post are accurate.
Health Care professionals can inquire about the details of their posting by sending a message to Pfizer Payment Transparency Initiative or calling 800-511-2727.
Will health care Professionals have the opportunity to review their data before it is posted?
Due to the volume of information that we will be disclosing, it will not be possible to provide all health care professionals the opportunity to review their data prior to publication.
Pfizer has consulted with health care professionals and gained valuable insights that helped guide the development of the tools and processes we will use to disclose our payments to health care professionals.
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