PharmaGossip "engages" with the ABPI's Andy Powrie-Smith

I asked:

Where do you think ABPI members currently sit (say on a scale from 1-10 - one being Hitler, 10 being Ghandi) with respect to "trust"?

How do you think they got there?

How do you think they might improve the situation?

Andy's reply:

Hope this finds you well and you had a good weekend. I don't have your
questions in front of me but I hope i can remember them.

On where do i think the industry is?

I am not sure about the 1-10 scale its probably very subjective and I have
only been in the industry for a year or so. My background is actually
NGO's. I was Director of the British Lung Foundation in Scotland for 4
years and with the Red Cross for 5 years before that. I probably arrived
at the ABPI with the same preconceived ideas as most but I can tell you
what I have found in terms of where i think the industry is.

As you know it is an incredibly broad church in terms of individual company
view's of the world and also you get different perspectives from people
depending on what part of the industry they come from.

We have done two member survey's (2008 and 2009) and trust was put at top
of the agenda by member companies in both. They have put their resources
where their mouth is on it and I have had a great number of volunteers from
within companies working on the various workstreams. We started with an
Trust taskforce comprised on industry and external people to identify the
UK issues and come up with a plan to address them. We made very clear this
wasn't a PR exercise but that the member survey had given us a mandate to
tackle issues head on. I know a lot of your posts have related to the US
and other parts but my remit is just UK. I can only focus on stuff I can
do something about and falls within our gift to tackle. The issues the
group identified was behaviours (specifically promotional aids and funding
education training and meetings), transparency and our narrow model of
engagement. We are coming up with proposals to address each one and will
aim to have them all finished by Spring next year. If we take promotional
items for example my personal view is - if there is a problem with the
dynamic of giving these things away which harms doctors and industry then
we stop giving them away, pretty simple.

So far support for the initiatives, particularly from the ABPI Board has
been very strong, in fact they are really driving the pace.

So all in all, my experience has been pretty positive on where the industry
is and particularly where it wants to get too.


On the how did we get here.....................

I am not that well qualified to say because of I'm new to the industry.
But like most things I guess it has been a process of evolution. I picked
up your views on the Code of Practice and I know its behaviours that are
key but my feeling is that the code has made a difference to the industry
in the UK by driving appropriate behaviours. I would be interested to hear
how you view it in the context of other countries codes and ways of working
etc

Dear Readers - feel free to comment.