The American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) published in 2008 an updated position statement titled, “Pharmacists and Industry: Guidelines for Ethical Interactions” (see http://www.accp.com/docs/positions/positionStatements/Guidelines_for_Ethical_Interactions.pdf). This position statement provides 10 guidelines for the ethical interaction of individual pharmacists with industry related to clinical practice, research, and educational activities. ACCP as a professional pharmacy organization plays a central role in promoting clinical pharmacy practice, research, and education; it is also credentialed as a continuing education provider by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). Although ACCP has published ethical guidelines for the interaction of member pharmacists with industry since 1993, the College currently has no public position statement or guidelines governing the interaction of ACCP with industry beyond internal policies and procedures that comply with ACPE requirements for continuing education accreditation.

Most, if not all, ACCP members are aware of the increased attention and scrutiny recently accorded to interactions of the health care industry with health professionals, professional organizations, and providers of continuing medical education. Published commentaries and guidelines have appeared during the past 12 months in the lay press, professional journals, independent foundation papers, congressional documents, and pharmaceutical industry publications. Growing concern about the influence of industry on aspects of education, research, and practice in the health professions has led some professional organizations to reevaluate their relationships with the health care industry and to consider greater transparency of the organizational activities and funding that result from collaboration with industry.

The ACCP Board of Regents (BOR) has held discussions during the past year regarding the appropriateness of current and future relationships with industry. To facilitate informed discussion of this issue, a decision was made at the February 2009 BOR meeting to charge a task group composed of members of the BOR, the ACCP Research Institute Board of Trustees, and the Pharmacotherapy Board of Directors to review existing policies, opinions, and recommendations from ACPE, other professional organizations, independent foundations, the pharmaceutical industry, and other credible sources relevant to defining and managing interactions between professional organizations and industry. The task group was also charged to develop draft guidelines on organization-industry relationships for consideration by all three boards.

The resulting three-board consensus draft guidelines will then be released to the ACCP membership for comment. After receipt of member input, the three boards will seek to draft and adopt a final guidelines statement for implementation on January 1, 2010. The timetable for this policy development process is detailed below.