Medical education

Medical knowledge is continually evolving as we learn more about the human body and discover new treatments for serious diseases. Doctors must keep up to date with these changes throughout their career so they can provide the best care for their patients.

Medical education (also known as continuing medical education or CME) is often provided by specialist companies and universities, and may be funded by pharmaceutical companies.

Why does AstraZeneca fund medical education?

We believe medical education plays a very important role in educating healthcare professionals and improving patient care. However, it can be costly for health authorities and healthcare professionals themselves and we believe in many cases would not be possible without funding from pharmaceutical companies.

We choose to support CME that improves expertise in areas of medicine that are relevant to our business – for example we focus on diseases commonly treated by AstraZeneca therapies. However, our funding for CME is never used as a disguised means to promote a particular AstraZeneca medicine.

We may be involved in the organisation of educational programmes for healthcare professionals or provide funding to independent providers. In the US, for example, our funding is provided through medical education grants offices, which are separate from our sales and marketing function.

Are there any downsides to pharmaceutical funding?

Provided that the education is accurate, balanced and of high quality, we believe that our funding is beneficial.

The prevalence of pharmaceutical industry funding can mean that CME is more common in some disease areas than others, but this does allow public funding to concentrate on other areas.