Innovation Needs Transparency
At Boehringer Ingelheim, we prioritize the establishment and maintenance of public trust. Transparency is therefore a key pillar of our corporate culture, as well as a vital principle in healthcare compliance.
The actions taken by our company are shaped by our vision of “value through innovation.” This vision applies through all areas, including healthcare compliance, and serves as the guiding principle for our employees. It enables us to build on our strengths and hone our profile. In addition, it reflects the focus of our work and our efforts: research and development of innovative drugs to treat diseases with high unmet medical need.
Working together to create new therapies
To develop medical innovations, we work closely with doctors, hospitals, patient organizations, and other healthcare representatives. In doing so, we benefit from the diversity of expertise offered by these individual partners – a benefit that is later passed on to the patients. Our partnerships and collaborations rely on transparency and clear specifications. We naturally comply with existing laws and regulations governing our joint activities, including payment guidelines; Boehringer Ingelheim’s payments to doctors and other healthcare professionals are always based on fair market value, depending on the type of activity, the specialist expertise involved, and time taken.
Transparency enhances trust
We have established transparency as a key pillar of our corporate culture and ensure transparent actions in all our partnerships through all areas. We openly and frankly disclose our activities. By doing so, we establish relationships of trust between ourselves and our partners, and with the public. We therefore support a range of schemes designed to enhance transparency: disclosure of collaboration with patient organizations, disclosure of clinical data (Transparency and Publication of Clinical Study Date), and disclosure of payments to other cooperation partners in line with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known as the Sunshine Act) and the EFPIA Disclosure Code.
All these schemes are designed to improve transparency in relations between drug manufacturers and medical professionals, hospitals and patient organizations. The Sunshine Act was the model for the Disclosure Code of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
Our disclosures under the EFPIA Disclosure Code
At Boehringer Ingelheim, our aim is to increase transparency – and thus trust – between ourselves and our partners in the healthcare sector in the future. To achieve this, we have undertaken to publish payments and other transfers of value to medical professionals and members of the healthcare profession. Payments from the year 2015 will be published by June 30, 2016.