Sponsorship and conflicts of interests in CME: the Italian experience

Pursuant to the Italian healthcare framework, sponsorship of Continuing Medical Education (CME) for healthcare professionals governs the relationship between the medical industry and the healthcare sector, as public institutions are directly involved in it. Sponsorship is based on a voluntarily sharing of mutual benefits between two contracting parties, namely the sponsor and the sponsorship beneficiary, whose interests are relevant to the same degree. To avoid conflicts of interests from occurring, sponsorship shall comply with two ethical standards: 1) the contracting parties shall verify if their interests about CME activities converge or conflict; 2) the sponsorship contract shall be published and advertised to disclose what kind of commitment the contracting parties undertook. When entering a CME sponsorship contract as sponsorship beneficiary, Italian local health authorities may rely on a code of conduct which lays down all principles, criteria and proceedings that shall apply.