EMEA/About us/Our responsibilities /Our responsibility to healthcare professionals

Our responsibility to healthcare professionals

Our approach to continuous professional development

We invest in education programmes, materials and events, making them part of the responsibility for the medicines we develop. This work contributes to the enhancement of medical practice by increasing knowledge about diseases and the latest standards of care.
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Partnering for lifelong learning in healthcare
We contribute to the high quality education in partnership with the medical community, and ensure that important new medical advances are discussed in a variety of settings, from international congresses to smaller educational meetings.

Strict principles and compliance requirements ensure we set out clear procedures on interactions with individual healthcare professionals, as well as those with medical societies and institutions.
The three types of medical education activities

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Congress attendance
The educational meetings we support must foster scientific exchange and disseminate the latest standard of care to facilitate safe and effective treatment for patients. Some of these meetings are accredited by accreditation bodies and some are not. At J&J Innovative Medicine we apply the same quality rules to both.
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We follow the EFPIA code of practice: Article 16 for Medical Education activities. Locally, J&J Innovative Medicine follows national events accreditation and local rules and codes of practice, including any applicable endorsement if required by Health Authorities.

We provide financial support in the form of grants and sponsorships to major national and European congresses because of the role they play in the dissemination of important medical advances.
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Medical education programmes
We support medical educational events and activities, organised with independent experts according to strict principles. We base our policy on the Article 16 of the EFPIA Code of Practice, as well as on local regulations and codes of practice, depending on which are stricter.
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Meetings are non-promotional
All educational meetings are managed by our Medical Affairs department which is separate from the commercial side of our business. These educational meetings do not focus on a single drug but disease areas. Medicine brand names are not used and any discussion about specific treatments has to be balanced and factual.


Content
The content and programme of meetings are developed by external expert Scientific Committees and/or Medical Associations. They select the topics that they judge to be educationally relevant and choose the presenters to lead the sessions. The speakers are responsible for their presentations. J&J Innovative Medicine only review materials to ensure they are up to date, fair and balanced in terms of information about our medicines.

Conflict of interest
All speakers have to declare any conflict of interest, including which pharmaceutical companies have paid them, and in what capacity, e.g. as presenters, sitting on advisory boards, congress participation etc.


Format
The key focus of these meetings is science, the agenda must reflect it, the choice of location and the hospitality provided must be secondary to this main purpose. The amount of time spent on the scientific programme needs to far exceed the break times.


External validation
To ensure the quality of the education and training provided, we work with external educational bodies at both country and regional level.
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Individual support
In many countries, authorities require healthcare professionals to keep up to date with medical advances through continued education, but often do not support postgraduate medical education.
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Along with other pharmaceutical companies, we take part of the responsibility here. Our selection process is transparent and is based on doctors’ educational needs or active involvement in a particular meeting or event.

Any individual support is, of course, subject to local regulations, such as required notification to health authorities or contribution by the individual doctor.
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How our medical education work is regulated and disclosed
Our approach ensures we meet expectations of transparent and unbiased lifelong learning in healthcare, whilst fostering scientific exchange and knowledge dissemination to ensure the best treatment outcomes for patients.

In addition to the criteria outlined above, we have strict rules to ensure our educational support does not constitute undue influence.
Logistics
Hotels are business venues (and under no circumstances are they luxury or entertainment venues), and flights are economy, unless the duration exceeds six hours – if local rules permit. There are limits on the amount which can be spent on food and drink too, based on local pharmaceutical association hospitality limits.
Service fees
We pays a token amount when requesting services such as speaker engagement, serving on advisory boards or developing educational materials. Fees are calculated based on the time dedicated to providing the service, as advised by independent sources.
Transparency
Since June 2016, we annually publish the transfers of value made to healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations, according to the EFPIA Disclosure Code and national Industry Association guidelines or national regulations, as appropriate.
Learn more about our Transfer of Value

CP-459038
September 2024