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Novo Nordisk has been publicly reprimanded by a UK industry body for failing to properly disclose £7.8mn in payments and other benefits to patient groups, healthcare bodies and journalists from 2020 to 2022.
The maker of diabetes drug Ozempic and weight-loss treatment Wegovy did not properly document and disclose transfers of value to more than 150 different bodies, according to the ethics body of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), which applies the ABPI’s code of practice, said on Friday that there “appeared to be a systemic failure in relation to compliance with transfers of value” at Novo Nordisk, referring to both direct and indirect payments such as covering expenses for recipients.
The PMCPA said the disclosure failures related to 10-14 per cent of each year’s total transfers by the company in the UK.
The ABPI last year suspended Novo Nordisk’s membership for two years after finding that the Danish company had violated rules by sponsoring a “disguised” large-scale promotional campaigner.
The latest reprimand follows a voluntary submission by the Danish pharmaceutical group to the ABPI’s ethics body after it discovered errors in its own reporting over the period.
While there are no financial penalties related to the breach, the rare public reprimand by the ABPI deals a reputational blow to the company.
Booming demand for weight-loss drugs has catapulted Novo Nordisk to a market capitalisation of $630bn but the company’s success has also brought greater scrutiny from politicians and regulators.
US President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders this week jointly called on Novo Nordisk and US rival Eli Lilly to substantially reduce prices of their weight-loss drugs.
The payments in question included to healthcare professionals and organisations, individual patients and patient groups, and journalists, the PMCPA stated.
It added that the company “did not appear to have adequate oversight and processes in place to correctly disclose transfers of value over, at the very least, a three-year period such that Novo Nordisk had brought discredit upon and reduced confidence in the pharmaceutical industry”.
Neither the PMCPA nor Novo Nordisk disclosed the size or the recipients of individual payments.
The company said it took “the reporting of these payments extremely seriously”, adding that it had put mitigating actions in place to safeguard “how we track, tag, and disclose payments, and are working with external partners to ensure we have robust systems and processes in place.”
The industry watchdog also said on Friday that Swiss pharma group Novartis and US competitor Pfizer had failed to disclose relevant information to users of their products, in more minor breaches of the code.
It found that Pfizer employees had promoted its Covid-19 vaccine on Twitter before it had been clinically approved, without providing relevant information on safety, in a case first reported in April.
Pfizer said it accepted the ruling. “In this case, personal social media shared in error in November 2020 was not compliant with the requirements of our Industry Code of Practice and Pfizer policy and for this we are deeply sorry.”
Novartis was alleged to have presented out-of-date prescribing information, including hosting outdated information on its website.
Novartis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.