Patient organisations failed to disclose £14m in drug company payments over four years, study finds

Patient organisations failed to declare over £14m (€15.3m; $18m) in payments from pharmaceutical companies between 2012 and 2016, according to a study from BMJ Open.1

The paper compared drug company (87) and patient organisation (425) disclosure reports in the UK and found that there were 1472 payments equalling £14 023 475 missing from the reports from 225 patient groups. Meanwhile, there were 128 payments missing from drug company records, equating to £1.6m.

Researchers have declared that the current systems to track payments that drug companies make and patient organisations receive are not working and called for a single, state run, permanent database integrating payments reported by drug companies and patient organisations in order …