Non-research payments to board-certified cardiologists from pharmaceutical industry in Japan from 2016 to 2019: a retrospective analysis

Abstract

Objectives To evaluate the extent and trends of personal payments from pharmaceutical companies to cardiologists board-certified by the Japanese Circulation Society.Design A retrospective analysis study using data from a publicly available database.Setting The study focused on payments to cardiologists in Japan.Participants All 15 048 cardiologists who were board-certified by the Japanese Circulation Society as of 2021.Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome was the extent of personal payments to cardiologists in 2016–19. Secondary outcomes included the analysis of trends in these payments over the same period.Results Of all 15 048 board-certified cardiologists, 9858 (65.5%) received personal payments totaling $112 934 503 entailing 165 013 transactions in 2016–19. The median payment per cardiologist was $2947 (IQR, $1022–$8787), with a mean of $11 456 (SD, $35 876). The Gini Index was 0.840, indicating a high concentration of payments to a small number of cardiologists. The top 1%, 5% and 10% of cardiologists received 31.6%, 59.4% and 73.5% of all payments, respectively. There were no significant trends in the number of cardiologists receiving payments or number of payments per cardiologist during the study period.Conclusions More than 65% of Japanese cardiologists received personal payments from pharmaceutical companies over the 4-year study period. Although the payment amount was relatively small for the majority of cardiologists, a small number of cardiologists received the vast majority of the payments.