Announcements

As part of the professionalization of patients organizations and the expansion of their activities (eg. awareness campaigns, advisory services for patients and their relatives, etc.) the need for financial resources is also increasing. This need is often covered by pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. This update analyzed the extent of financial support for patient organizations from pharmaceutical companies in Austria in 2016. 40 of 118 PHARMIG member companies have declared donations to patient organization for the year 2016. A total sum of € 1.435.059 in grants to patient initiatives were reported by the PHARMIG member companies. Most grants (72%) were given to initiatives in the field of Oncology & Hematology, Neurology, Lung, Hemophilia, and Rheumatology.

As part of the professionalization of patients organizations and the expansion of their activities (eg. awareness campaigns, advisory services for patients and their relatives, etc.) the need for financial resources is also increasing. This need is often covered by pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. This update analyzed the extent of financial support for patient organizations from pharmaceutical companies in Austria in 2015. 36 of 116 PHARMIG member companies have declared donations to patient organization for the year 2015. A total sum of € 1.724.683 in grants to patient initiatives were reported by the PHARMIG member companies. Most grants (68%) were given to initiatives in the field of Oncology & Hematology, Neurology, Lung, Hepatitis, and Rheumatology.

Altogether there was a significant increase in disclosure in comparison to 2014. Both the number of pharmaceutical companies that declared financial contributions and the total sum of contributions has risen by 50%.

The study questions of non-interventional studies (NIS) in Austria were evaluated again two years after the first report. NIS evaluate pharmaceuticals and medical devices after their marketing authorization for the approved indication in routine clinical settings. By law NIS do not have to be approved in Austria but need to be registered. A public database of NIS has to be made available to the interested public. On Aug. 7^th, 2015, the initial reference date, LBI-HTA had evaluated the then 33 available summaries of final reports from the database from a total of then 251 registered NIS. On April 3^rd, 2017 – the reference date of this update – already 72 summaries (plus 39) were available for evaluation from a total of now 325 (plus 74) registered NIS. So this update shows that over time more and more summaries of final reports are included in the public database. Most summaries are still formally incomplete. The most common research questions NIS addressed were effectiveness in practice and drug safety. The summaries of final reports answer their respective research questions with mostly exclusively positive results, only 2 of 72 NIS for which summaries are in the database also report negative results. 21 of 72 NIS are also registered in international trial registries and for 13 of 72 NIS scientific publications could be identified via Pubmed. The poor quality of the database (maintenance and control of content) has not improved in the almost two years since our initial report.

Publication: Rapid Assessment No. 7c Update: https://eprints.aihta.at/1122/

Contact: Claudia Wild