A British watchdog has criticized four drugmakers, including Novo Nordisk, for violating the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s code of practice, marking the third time the Danish pharma has landed in hot water in the UK in recent years.
Novo was chided for failing to disclose 500 “transfers” it made to more than 150 vendors over a three-year period starting from 2020, including to “health professionals, other relevant decision makers and healthcare organisations.” The total value of the payments was around £7.8 million, according to a Friday release issued by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA).
The PMCPA, which oversees the complaints procedure for the ABPI code, described the scale of the undisclosed transfers as “extremely serious” in a public reprimand. The case report did not say whether Novo’s payments were related to a particular product or franchise.
Novo said in an emailed statement that the transfers were for “legitimate activities,” but were incorrectly categorized in finance systems “as a result of human error.”
Public reprimands are one of several sanctions that the PMCPA can impose, with others including advertisements in medical press and requirements to issue a corrective statement. The most severe sanction is suspension or expulsion from membership with the trade group.
Novo was suspended from the ABPI in March 2023 for breaching certain marketing rules to promote its weight loss drugs to pharmacy professionals, and is currently under an audit cycle.
In February 2023, Novo’s general manager for the UK, Pinder Sahota, stepped down from his role as president of the ABPI amid criticism over the drugmaker sponsoring webinars touting its weight loss and diabetes treatment Saxenda.
Novo was the only company that was publicly reprimanded but it wasn’t the only one that “brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry,” according to the Friday release.
The PMCPA also called out Novartis for failing to update and recertify two documents on its website with the latest prescribing information for its heart drug Entresto. The out-of-date information could have impacted patient safety, according to the case report.
In a separate case, the watchdog said Pfizer promoted its then-unlicensed BioNTech-partnered Covid-19 vaccine to members of the public in 2020 via Twitter. The tweet touted relative efficacy rates with no information about absolute efficacy or safety, amounting to a “misleading claim.” When contacted for comment, Pfizer referred to an April statement where it said it “fully recognises and accepts” the issues highlighted by the watchdog.
The PMCPA also criticized Otsuka for its behavior in the context of a previous case against it that ended in 2015. The complainant, who was a former employee, alleged that the company failed to disclose all relevant information to the PMCPA, did not allow witnesses to see or sign the statements submitted to the watchdog, and forced three whistleblowers out of the business.
All four companies will have their breaches advertised in the British Medical Journal on July 13 and the Nursing Standard on July 25. Novartis and Otsuka did not immediately respond to a request for comment.