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Photo of Shai Mulinari. Private photo.

Shai Mulinari

Associate Professor | Senior Lecturer

Photo of Shai Mulinari. Private photo.

Pharmaceutical industry payments to patient organizations in Poland : Analysis of the patterns, evolution, and structure of connections

Author

  • Marta Makowska
  • Shai Mulinari
  • Piotr Ozieranski

Summary, in English

Drug company funding can create conflicts of interest that compromise the integrity of patient organizations, a problem studied primarily in Western Europe and North America. To address this research gap, we conducted a case study in Poland, a Central European country. Between 2012 and 2020, 33 companies reported payments worth €13 729 644 to 273 patient organizations in Poland. The funding was highly concentrated, with the top ten recipients amassing 46.2 percent of the total amount. Cancer patient organizations were the primary recipients, receiving 37.5 percent. The funding focused on patient organizations' educational activities, constituting 40.4 percent of the total. For the ten companies reporting payments consistently from 2012 to 2020, we detected an increase in both the value of individual payments and the overall value of the funding. Additionally, some patient organizations formed exclusive, or nearly exclusive, ties with single companies. Overall, our study reveals important similarities between Poland and Western countries in the reported distribution of drug company payments to patient organizations. It also highlights priority areas for further research, including the evolution and structure of the financial connections.

Department/s

  • Department of Sociology

Publishing year

2025

Language

English

Pages

199-212

Publication/Series

International journal of social determinants of health and health services

Volume

55

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Anthropology, Demography and Criminology)
  • Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Status

Published

Project

  • Following the money: cross-national study of pharmaceutical industry payments to medical associations and patient organisations

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2755-1938