Pharma companies continue to pay millions to doctors

The flood of money poured into doctors, hospitals, networks of doctors, professional bodies and patient groups by pharmaceutical companies remains substantial.

In 2025, these payments – in the form of conference attendance fees, accommodation expenses, fees and consultancy fees – totalled CHF234 million ($283 million).

This figure is CHF28 million lower than in 2024, but the decline is mainly due to the lower number of major research collaborations, explains Der Beobachter in Thursday’s issue, which, along with other publications in the Ringier Group, tracks these payments via the platform www.pharmagelder.ch.

Currently, over 60 companies disclose these payments on the basis of an internal industry self-regulatory scheme, agreed in 2014 to improve transparency in a sector that some consider opaque. In total, the payments disclosed since then amount to CHF2.1 billion.

The concern with these payments is potential conflicts of interest, points out the fortnightly magazine, which champions consumer interests. It has been shown that doctors who receive sponsorships tend to prescribe expensive brand-name medicines more often than cheaper generics containing the same active ingredient.

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Furthermore, they write prescriptions for a greater number of medicines and, statistically, deviate more often from official, impartial medical guidelines.

In theory, according to medicines legislation, the choice of treatment must not be influenced by financial incentives but rather a course of treatment must be based on scientific and objective criteria. However, neither the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) nor professional associations or other trade organisations monitor compliance with these rules, the magazine emphasises.

For the past two years, the most generous company has been the Anglo-Swedish group AstraZeneca. The company, which aims to bring 30 new cancer treatments to market by the end of 2027, has more than doubled its payments over five years, bringing them to CHF27.4 million. Swiss firm Novartis ranks second with CHF26.4 million, followed by Roche, which contributes CHF25.6 million.

The American giant Pfizer, which last year ranked fourth among funders with CHF21.3 million, has halved its payments in Switzerland to CHF11.3 million; however, the company has scaled back its involvement almost exclusively in the area of major research collaborations, while payments to individual doctors have increased in recent years.

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Translated from Italian, reviewed by an English Department journalist.