THE pharmaceutical watchdog is demanding an urgent explanation from the Pharmacy Guild and the Pfizer drug company over payments to pharmacists for enrolling patients who have been prescribed Pfizer products.

The action has come as it emerges there may be at least 18 similar ''patient support'' programs under which pharmacists and other health professionals are paid a fee by drug companies to sign patients up to programs that enable drug companies to communicate health messages directly to patients.

The disclosure of a $7 payment to pharmacists for signing customers on to Pfizer educational schemes has prompted criticisms that the ''patient support'' program may sway patients and compromise the independence of pharmacists.

A spokeswoman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration said the agency was writing to the guild and the company asking them to ''urgently explain the circumstances of this commercial arrangement to see if any aspect of it breaches the Therapeutic Goods Act''.

The legislation prohibits the marketing to patients of prescription medicines subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Pfizer Australia chief executive John Latham has denied the program covering nine Pfizer products is a form of promotion or advertising but is designed to promote compliance and better lifestyles.

But Grant Kadarchi, president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, representing the pharmacy profession, said he was a ''a bit uncomfortable'' about a pharmaceutical company usurping the pharmacists' role. He could understand how the payment could be seen as an ''enticement''.

Kos Sclavos, president of the Pharmacy Guild, representing about 5000 pharmacies, has been reported as saying there were ''at least 18 similar programs'' similar to the Pfizer scheme, where drug companies paid a professional fee to doctors and pharmacists to sign up patients.

The Australian Medical Association, which has stated the program threatened to undermine confidence in health professionals, says while there have been schemes in the past, it knows of no existing scheme under which drug companies pay doctors a fee for enrolling patients.

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