MP Urges ‘Full and Mandatory Disclosure’ After Pharmaceutical Funding Investigation

Medical Royal Colleges received £9 million in marketing payments from drug and medical device companies

The Pfizer Pharmaceutical company logo is displayed at Discovery Park in Sandwich, England, on Aug. 17, 2011. Dan Kitwood/WPA Pool/Getty Images

An MP has called for “full and mandatory disclosure” after an investigation found that royal colleges in the UK have received millions in marketing payments from drug and medical devices companies.

An investigation published by the British Medical Association on Tuesday found that royal colleges in the UK have received more than £9 million in marketing payments from drug and medical devices companies since 2015 sparking conflict of interest concerns.

In the article, Labour MP and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Surgical Mesh Implants Emma Hardy said: “I can see no justification for anything but full and mandatory disclosure.”

“Medicine is literally a matter of life and death, and patients must be confident they are receiving the best treatment available for the right reasons,” she added.

The investigation looked at 16 royal colleges and found that The Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners were the biggest recipients of pharmaceutical money.

Royal colleges are professional bodies responsible for the development of and training in one or more medical specialities.

The data was compiled, in part, from Disclosure UK, an online database run by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), the trade association for the research-based pharmaceutical industry in the UK.

Disclosure UK is part of a “Europe-wide initiative​ to increase transparency between pharmaceutical companies and the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals and organisations it works with.”

Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of GPs

More than half of the sum went to the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of GPs, which received £2.8 million and £2.4 million, respectively.

The biggest donor overall was Pfizer, with £1.8 million in payments, followed by Novo Nordisk with £730,000, and Daiichi Sankyo with £478 000.

The database showed that these payments were largely for sponsorships of events (£4.6 million) and donations and grants (£2.3 million).

The investigation claimed that it asked colleges to disclose all payments from industry, campaign groups, or patient associations, including the specific amount received from each donor, but they all refused to do so.

The Epoch Times understands that the Department of Health in the UK is preparing to do a consultation about mandatory disclosure.

‘Big Pharma Excesses’

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a high-profile cardiologist and an outspoken critic of the COVID-19 vaccines told The Epoch Times by email that he was “absolutely shocked that medical royal colleges are taking millions of pounds from pharmaceutical and medical device companies.”

“The evidence of Big Pharma excesses and manipulations are at the very root of deteriorating mental and physical health of the population is overwhelming,” he added.

“The longer the royal colleges continue to take money from Big Pharma the longer it will take to restore trust in the medical profession,” he said.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a UK-based cardiologist, in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 29, 2022. The Epoch Times

Dr. Malhotra has emerged as a controversial figure since 2022, when he called for the suspension of Britain’s vaccine mandates, which was overturned for NHS workers in April 2022. However, Dr. Malhotra was a staunch supporter of the vaccine just a year prior.

He has previously said he has seen the crisis as “an opportunity actually to restore trust and rebuild and take medicine back to where it should be, which is to promote practice, very simple” and now campaigns as “an advocate for ethical, evidence-based medicine.”

‘Committed to Transparency’

Dr. Amit Aggarwal, ABPI medical director told The Epoch Times by email that the pharmaceutical industry is “committed to transparency in the relationships between the medical community and companies and we support the principle of mandatory disclosure.”

“Our Disclosure UK platform—an open register of the payments made by companies to healthcare professionals—is a European leader in both reporting and useability. Disclosure of payments to healthcare professionals via this platform is already mandatory for companies in ABPI membership as well as for those non-member companies signed up to abide by the ABPI Code of Practice,” he said.

“We want to work with the government to strengthen Disclosure UK so companies can continue to drive improvements in healthcare,” he added.

A spokesperson for The Royal College of General Practitioners forwarded The Epoch Times a statement which said that it will publish an annual list of all college sponsors as of the 2023-2024 financial year and that it “cooperated fully with the BMJ in its investigation.”

“Wherever possible and subject to any contractual and data handling restrictions that may exist, information on the financial bandwidths of sponsorship funding will also be included,” it said.

“We are not able to provide a list of past sponsors as we do not have the authorisation in place for historical agreements to make them public and our sponsorship policy was clear that this was not something the college had actively decided to do, largely due to the time and resource required,” it added.

A spokesman from The Royal College of Physicians told The Epoch Times by email that it is “not financially dependent as a charity on income received from corporate partnerships and no corporate partner has ever provided more than 1 percent of our annual income.

“Our core activities are funded from membership subscriptions, exams, venue hire and charitable donations. However corporate partnerships allow us to fund some supplementary activities, including membership events, conferences, webinars and scholarships.

“We are committed to transparency and work collaboratively to ensure that entries in the ABPI database Disclosure UK are accurate,” he added.

The Epoch Times contacted Mrs Hardy for comment.

The Epoch Times also contacted Pfizer, Novo Nordisk and Daiichi Sankyo for comment.