Pharmaceutical payments to Australian health care professionals from 2015 to 2024

Pharmaceutical companies make extensive payments to clinicians, but national patterns in Australia have not been described across professions and specialties over time. We analysed all publicly disclosed payments from Medicines Australia member companies to named healthcare professionals between 1 October 2015 and 31 October 2024. Using repeated cross-sectional and cohort analyses, we quantified payment volume, reach across professions and specialties, and concentration of payments among recipients, and examined time trends and company–specialty relationships. In total, 104,663 payments worth A$164.4 million (USD $117.7 million) were made to 23,528 individuals. Payments were dominated by funding for travel and fees for service, and four in five paid clinicians received support to attend educational meetings. Overall, 12.2% of doctors, 2.1% of pharmacists and 1.0% of nurses in Australia received at least one payment. Specialty reach was highest in clinical haematology and oncology and rheumatology, and the top 1% of paid clinicians received one quarter of all dollars paid. Payment volumes peaked in 2016/17, fell during the early COVID-19 period and rebounded by 2023/24. These findings indicate that pharmaceutical funding to Australian clinicians is common, persistent and highly concentrated, particularly in specialties with on-patent medicines, and support stronger management of competing interests in clinical education and professional governance.