Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have joined the growing number of pharmaceutical companies revealing multimillion expenditures paid to doctors and other healthcare professionals for clinical trials, consulting, speaking, and other items.

Details of the payments, which totaled $177 million at Pfizer and $85 million at GSK, were made available on the companies’ web sites in response to growing public concern that the payments might influence doctor's prescribing habits or other decision-making. The disclosures are also providing a trial run for the companies ahead of 2013, when all biopharmaceutical companies will be required by provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to disclose payments and gifts to U.S. doctors and teaching hospitals.

Pfizer reported that in 2010 it paid $177 million to healthcare professionals and researchers. The payments included compensation to doctors for clinical research, consulting, and speaking engagements as well as the value of meals, educational items and reimbursed travel expenses.

About 61 percent of the $177 million in expenditures reported by Pfizer went to clinical trials and related research and development expenses. Payments to doctors for speaking to their peers about various illnesses and Pfizer medicines accounted for much of the remainder, with 4,600 healthcare professional receiving an average $7,400 per person in 2010 for their work.

“Pfizer depends on the medical and scientific community for a broad range of activities, from conducting clinical trials to providing insight about patient care needs,” says Steve Romano, a senior vice president of Pfizer's Medicines Development Group. “Through our interactions, we receive valuable information that can help us better serve doctors and patients, or we share information that health care professionals may use to make better treatment decisions for their patients.”

GlaxoSmithKline paid healthcare professionals about $85 million in 2010, it said. Of that total, it spent $56.8 million to pay outside health professionals to speak on behalf of the company or provide it advice. The company paid an additional $28.5 million to 595 different researchers in the U.S. associated with its clinical studies.

The disclosures by Pfizer and GSK come a week after Merck released similar figures, saying that in 2010 it paid $20.4 million to U.S. doctors who speak on behalf of Merck about the company's products and other healthcare issues.