Objective
To investigate the nature, extent and evolution of financial relationships between key opinion leaders (KOL) or non-KOL physicians and pharmaceutical and device companies in France.
Design
Retrospective and descriptive study
Setting
All doctors practicing in France, with a focus on 548 KOL defined as board members of all the professional medical associations having published clinical practice guidelines in 2018 or 2019. These 99 associations were identified by the cross-checking of 3 databases.
Main outcome measures
The number and the amount of gifts (year by year since 2014), remunerations and agreements (year by year since 2017).
Results
Physicians had 818m Euros (936m dollars, 741m pounds) of gifts declared from 2014 to 2019. 83% of KOL had such links of interest. The 548 identified KOL represented 0.24% of physicians in France but received 1.5% of the total amount of gifts, i.e. 12.3m euros (14m dollars or 11m pounds / 3,700K euros per capita per year).
Physicians had 125m Euros (143m dollars and 114m pounds) of agreements declared from 2017 to 2019. The 548 KOL received 0.72% of the agreements and 2.5% of the value of the agreements, i.e. 3.1m Euros (3.6m dollars, 2.8m pounds) or 1 900 euros per capita per year.
Physicians had 156m Euros of remunerations declared from 2017 to 2019. The 548 identified KOL received 4.4% of the total value of remunerations to physicians, i.e. 6.8m Euros or 4 100 Euros per capita per year.
Almost every professional medical associations (99%) had in their board at least one KOL with a financial tie.
Conclusion
Financial relationships between KOL and the industry in France are extensive, KOL have much more financial ties than non-KOL practitioners. The main limit of this study arises from the quality of information provided on the French Transparency in Healthcare database.
Pre-registration: osf.io/m8syh
Pain Medicine Ethics Forum: Key Opinion Leaders with Industry Conflicts of Interest Should Be Able to Hold Leadership Positions in Professional Medical Associations
