Last year, the legitimate economic benefits provided by domestic drug and medical device suppliers to healthcare institutions were investigated to be 818.2 billion won.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service released the results of an expenditure report survey on the 11th.
The expenditure report analyzes the legitimate economic benefits provided to medical professionals by pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, and distributors for product promotion. Legally permitted economic benefits include giveaways, conference support, clinical trial support, product briefings, and post-market studies. South Korea first introduced the expenditure report system in 2018. This survey is the second phase following the first conducted in 2023, with the number of participating companies increasing to 21,789, approximately double compared to before.
According to this survey, 3,964 corporations provided economic benefits, accounting for 18.2% of all submitting corporations. In the first survey, 3,274 corporations provided economic benefits, resulting in a significantly reduced rate of 27.7%. However, the scale of economic benefits provided by the corporations slightly increased compared to the transfer.
In this survey, the scale of economic benefits amounted to 818.2 billion won, which is an increase of about 20 billion won compared to the 798.9 billion won from the first survey. In terms of the number of products, it was 21.19 million units, not showing much difference from the previous 20.48 million units. Only 5.8% of the pharmaceutical sales representatives included in the survey provided economic benefits this year.
By type of economic benefit, payment discounts for pharmaceuticals accounted for 68.1%. For medical devices, giveaways represented the largest share at 62.2%. This is similar to the figures from the first survey.
Starting this year, reports written directly by companies will be publicly disclosed. The expenditure report will be made available for five years from this date, and anyone can check it through the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service website.
Kim Guk-il, director of healthcare policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, noted, "I hope that the public disclosure system for expenditure reports will foster a transparent and sound order in the distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical devices."