NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is eliminating direct financial support for medical-education courses that are offered by third-party companies in a bid to deflect criticism that it improperly...

Pfizer Stops Funding Some Classes for Doctors

Doctors and pharmaceutical companies have been getting beat up lately for their intimate ties (see here, here and here). Now Pfizer is backing off a bit from one of its connections to medical practice: funding for physicians’ continuing medical education, or CME, courses.

The drug maker has decided to end payments for CME are provided by for-profit, third-party companies. It will continue funding courses offered by academic medical centers, teaching hospitals and medical societies.

“The reason we’re not going to directly support them has to do with mitigating the perception of a conflict of interest, if a direct payment is going from a company like Pfizer to them,” Cathryn Clary, VP of US external medical affairs, told Dow Jones Newswires.

Pfizer told DJ wires it spent $80 million funding CME courses last year; less than half went to for-profit companies.

The drug industry as a whole spent over $1 billion in 2006 funding these courses, which doctors must attend in order to keep their medical licenses. As the WSJ reported a few years back, the companies’ funding of CME...
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