Non-research payments to board-certified cardiologists from pharmaceutical industry in Japan from 2016 to 2019: a retrospective analysis

Objectives: To evaluate the extent and trends of personal payments from pharmaceutical companies to cardiologists board-certified by the Japanese Circulation Society.

Design: A retrospective analysis study using data from a publicly available database.

Setting: The study focused on payments to cardiologists in Japan.

Participants: All 15 048 cardiologists who were board-certified by the Japanese Circulation Society as of 2021.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: The primary outcome was the extent of personal payments to cardiologists in 2016-19. Secondary outcomes included the analysis of trends in these payments over the same period.

Results: Of all 15 048 board-certified cardiologists, 9858 (65.5%) received personal payments totaling $112 934 503 entailing 165 013 transactions in 2016-19. The median payment per cardiologist was $2947 (IQR, $1022-$8787), with a mean of $11 456 (SD, $35 876). The Gini Index was 0.840, indicating a high concentration of payments to a small number of cardiologists. The top 1%, 5% and 10% of cardiologists received 31.6%, 59.4% and 73.5% of all payments, respectively. There were no significant trends in the number of cardiologists receiving payments or number of payments per cardiologist during the study period.

Conclusions: More than 65% of Japanese cardiologists received personal payments from pharmaceutical companies over the 4-year study period. Although the payment amount was relatively small for the majority of cardiologists, a small number of cardiologists received the vast majority of the payments.