Some pharmaceutical companies will fail to meet
deadlines to begin reporting how much they spend on meetings for healthcare
professionals, a meetings expert has warned. Under the self-regulating European
Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ disclosure code,
introduced in 2014, pharma companies in 33 European countries are obliged to
report what are known as transfers of value for every HCP with whom they have
interacted in the previous calendar year, starting with 2015.
Meetings spend is one important element of the TOV
declarations, as it is for the United States' similar Open Payments law.
However, arriving at accurate TOV reporting has proved complicated in Europe for
several reasons, not the least being that requirements vary in each country.
For example, while some countries do not require pharma companies to report
their 2015 figures until June 30, most U.K. companies need to complete their
declarations by Jan. 31.
Another significant difference is that most countries
restrict their TOV requirement for meetings to what was spent on registration,
accommodation and travel. But for French HCPs, pharma companies must declare all
expenses above €10, which means they also have to reveal how much was spent on
meals.
Iona Courtenay-Warren, head of events for Carlson
Wagonlit Travel Meetings & Events in the United Kingdom and Ireland, said many
pharma companies, especially the majors, have prepared meticulously for their
first reports, but others have been less diligent. "I think some companies
will fail to disclose," she said. "Some will miss the deadlines. It
will be interesting to see for what reasons."
The European meetings manager for one large pharma
company, speaking to BTN on condition
of anonymity, said preparing TOV reports has proved onerous. "It has been
a challenge setting up tools that can be adapted country by country," he
said. "There is a lot of granularity of data that has to be collected from
many different agents and booking channels. It is a huge amount of work for us
and our agents. You have to find out how much was spent on each train, taxi and
transfer for each HCP."
The meetings manager added that he and most other
pharma companies he has spoken to are collecting data for all 33 EFPIA
countries to the same level of detail as they are for France, the market with
the most stringent requirements. What has made the task particularly difficult,
he said, is that he has not found any software "to bridge the gap between
delegate management and consolidation of actuals in an automated way. Figures
still need to be checked manually against the receipts." Betsy Bondurant,
president of Coronado, Calif.-based Bondurant Consulting, agreed. "There
is no one technology tool to deal with this," she said, though she noted
that TOV reporting is easier in Europe in some ways because "information
can be reported in aggregate for each HCP, whereas in the U.S., it is on an
event-by-event basis."
Many companies have given their meeting planners
formal training on producing TOV reports. Approaches to collating the data
vary. One client has outsourced responsibility for achieving TOV compliance to
CWT. In other cases, said Courtenay-Warren, "they just ask for the
spreadsheet and do it all themselves."
Courtenay-Warren said the code has caused some
challenges among companies' internal meeting and event planners. "If a U.K.
meetings owner is accustomed to mainly domestic meetings spend, they don’t
always understand why they have to report food-and-beverage spend for a French
delegate," she said. CWT also had a client whose internal sales rep organized
delegate travel for HCPs independently, making no effort to produce compliant
reporting, though CWT is mandated to handle all meetings travel for the company.
However, this was an exception.
Transparency
Vs. Privacy
"There has been discussion about whether data
privacy laws trump the EFPIA code," according to Courtenay-Warren. Because
the code is not legally binding, unlike for the United States’ Open Payments
law, some HCPs have refused to allow pharma companies to disclose how much has
been spent on them, arguing it is a breach of their privacy. This leaves pharma
companies with the dilemma of whether to agree to nondisclosure or to end its
relationship with the HCP. Courtenay-Warren said the better pharma companies
are working hard to persuade HCPs it is in their mutual interest to disclose.
The code has led to other changes. "Six months
ago, some HCPs were only attending the educational part of the meeting but were
skipping dinner. Now they are less scared," said Courtenay-Warren, who also
has seen pharma companies adjust their programs to make same-day travel easier.
For the anonymous meetings manager, however, "on
an operational level the biggest consequence is that there are now maximum
amounts on how much can be spent on accommodation and food and beverage for
HCPs from each country. For French HCPs, for example, the cap for dinner is
€60, including drinks and taxes. Venues are having to offer special menus"
for pharma events.