Most people involved in the life sciences or healthcare sector are aware, or at least have heard of, the “Sunshine Act”.
The “Sunshine Act”, now a familiar concept in the EU, is the abbreviated title of the 2010 US Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which was adopted as part of the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare) with the goal of enabling consumers to have knowledge of potential conflicts of interest between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals (HCPs).
In the Benelux, both Belgium and the Netherlands have adopted a transparency system making it mandatory for companies to disclose any advantage provided to a HCP. In Luxembourg, the national association of the pharmaceutical industry adopted a Code of Ethics establishing some transparency rules.
