Healthcare organisations, including hospitals, were provided with over €8 million in funding by the pharmaceutical industry in 2018, according to figures compiled by the Medical Independent.
The payments are listed on the pharmaceutical company pages within the transfer of value (ToV) register, which was established by the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA).
The organisations include public hospitals, clinical societies, membership colleges and faculties, and hospital foundations.
Higher-end payments to hospitals noted by MI across the 44 company pages on the ToV register included €74,090 from Gilead and €63,229 from Janssen to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH), Dublin; €93,314 from Sanofi to the Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) cardiology department and €64,000 to TUH from Takeda; and €58,741 from Daiichi Sankyo and €85,686 from Novartis to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. All of the above hospitals were contacted to provide further details on the purpose of the funding.
A TUH spokesperson said: “With regard to the sums that you referenced TUH received €93,314 from Sanofi into the TUH bank account. This project was supported by the hospital and the cardiology department led by Prof Vincent Maher. The funding was to support the establishment of the Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) National Network. All of the funds were used to support medical hours and nursing hours to carry out the research.
“The €64,000 from Takeda was received by a research account with an address at TUH. TUH is named as the healthcare organisation with an address at TUH. The hospital only has governance over funds which are transferred into the hospital’s bank account so cannot comment.”
A spokesperson for MMUH said the cited payments “are disclosure of payments made to individuals for research and development, donations and grants (including medical education and unrestricted educational grants), consultancy fees, registration fees or travel costs to attend medical conferences. These payments may have been made to an individual, or a service, within the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital.”
No comment had been received from Beaumont Hospital by press time.
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