155. Do any TGA or ATAGI employees or advisors have interests in pharmaceutical companies or receive payments from pharmaceutical companies?

Question Number: 180
PDR Number: SQ22-000148
Date Submitted: 24/02/2022
Department or Body: Department of Health

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)

All Departmental employees are required to disclose actual or apparent conflicts of interest in accordance with requirements of the Australian Public Service employment and financial management legislative frameworks, the department’s Accountable Authority Instructions, Finance Business Rules and Conflict of Interest Policy.

The Department’s Conflict of Interest Policy identifies a list of personal interests that employees may need to disclose if a connection can reasonably be made between the interest and the employee’s duties. Relevantly, disclosable personal interest may include financial shareholdings.

Under the Department’s Conflict of Interest Policy, employees of the Department are required to disclose any payment/s received during their employment that gives rise to a conflict of interest or could be perceived by others as doing so.

The Department does not capture employee disclosures centrally. Collecting this information would be an unreasonable diversion of resources.

Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI)

Membership Applicants to ATAGI are required to submit a Declaration of Interests (DoIs) form to enable consideration of potential or perceived conflicts of interest as part of the ATAGI selection process.

Ahead of each ATAGI meeting, members are required to submit DoI to capture any new activities, which are reviewed by the ATAGI Chair, consumer representative/s and the Department. No ATAGI members have declared interests in pharmaceutical companies.

As the Committee is comprised of clinical and scientific experts, some members have participated in vaccine-related research projects, generally as part of a team and through an institution, but have not received direct funding in relation to that research.

In addition, some members have declared attendance at speaking events organised by pharmaceutical companies and have had travel costs covered by the company.