Astellas is committed to providing ongoing high-quality medical education opportunities that help ensure appropriate clinical use of our products, fulfill educational needs/gaps and, ultimately, improve patient care.
Our culture is rooted in openness and integrity, and we continuously work to be a trusted leader in the ever-changing healthcare environment. In step with the evolving global landscape, Astellas does not provide direct funding to individual HCPs to attend local, regional or international congresses or medical education meetings. We recognize the importance of healthcare professionals accessing timely educational information to improve care for patients, and we remain committed to providing ongoing high-quality medical education opportunities that help ensure the appropriate clinical use of our existing medications and new medical innovations, fulfil educational needs/gaps and, ultimately, improve patient care.
Astellas shares new scientific data and disease information in a variety of formats that support the critical role of healthcare professionals in improving patient care, including:
- Grants for Education, also known as Independent Medical Education (IME)
- Symposia, webinars, e-learnings and web-based education (disease, treatment or product focused); examples include satellite symposia during a congress, speaker programs and product theatres
- Congress summaries
- Sponsorship of educational conferences
- Preceptorships
- Grants to healthcare organizations (HCOs) to support healthcare professional congress attendance and, in some cases, specialist training events.
Grants to HCOs to Support HCP Congress Attendance
HCOs may apply for funding grants to support HCP registration at pre-identified, eligible congresses. HCOs must submit a grant funding application form and be able to independently manage the entire process without any hands-on support. Each grant must be for a single congress and may support the registration of up to a maximum of 10 individual HCPs. There is no minimum number of HCPs per grants request. Astellas must have no involvement in the selection of the HCPs to receive support to register for a congress and will avoid visibility of HCPs that were selected by the HCO unless essential for transparency reporting purposes. The HCO must be one of the following:
- Government or publicly funded hospital
- Private hospital
- Medical society or association
In general, Astellas supports HCOs that are nationally recognized with their own professional administration and formal governance structure in place, serving more than 100 active members and conducting meetings for their members each year. For example, Royal Colleges, Therapy Area Specific Societies, Institutions, Associations, Faculties and Fellowships with a formal governance structure in place.
Astellas does not support Health Centre, General Practice/ Private Clinics, Non-nationally recognized and/or HCP Owned/Run Associations and Professional Groups.
The primary intent is to support payment of registration fees and Astellas will support Grants to HCOs for:
Virtual or in-person registration only at pre-identified international/regional congresses (aimed at HCPs in more than one country). In-person attendance (travel and/or accommodation) at international meetings cannot be supported.
Virtual or in-person registration and attendance (reasonable travel and/or accommodation) at domestic (in-country) congresses (aimed at HCPs in that market or country only). Any in-person congress attendance for domestic congresses is limited to support of reasonable transport and accommodation in line with POL-AST-8415 Global Policy on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals & Healthcare Organizations.
An HCO is only eligible to receive grants for HCP congress registration two times per fiscal year (April to March) per therapeutic area Astellas supports. A list of pre-approved congresses and whether live or virtual registration will be supported for that event can be viewed here.
HOW TO APPLY
HCOs wishing to apply for grant funding to support HCP congress registration should complete this form and return it to [email protected]. After an initial review of your submission to ensure HCO and event eligibility, your request will be forwarded to an internal Astellas Grants Committee for consideration. We anticipate that decisions on eligible requests may take up to six weeks. If you wish to check on the status of your request, please contact [email protected].