Allergan: senior UK employee’s LinkedIn ‘likes’ ruled to be proactive dissemination and promotion (pre-licence and to the public)

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Key facts

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Case	AUTH/3533/7/21
Company	Allergan
Complaint	Concerns about the conduct of employees on LinkedIn (senior UK employee ‘liked’ posts)
Complainant	Anonymous, non-contactable
Platform	LinkedIn (personal account engagement with corporate/colleague posts)
Medicines/topics referenced	Investigational abicipar (nAMD); Ubrelvy/ubrogepant (FDA approval); chronic migraine disease awareness; Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) post about FDA approval for paediatric upper limb spasticity indication (not licensed in UK)
Applicable Code year	2019
Complaint received	05 July 2021
Case completed	14 December 2021
Appeal	No appeal
No breach clauses	3.1; 26.1
Breach clauses	2; 3.1; 4.1; 4.9; 9.1; 14.1; 26.1
Sanctions	Undertaking received; Additional sanctions: Advertisement

Reviewed by Dr Anzal Qurbain (FFPM) — ABPI Final Signatory

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An anonymous complainant alleged a named senior Allergan UK employee (500+ LinkedIn connections) repeatedly ‘liked’/shared content visible to UK health professionals and members of the public.
Posts ‘liked’ included: investigational abicipar (AAO 2019 data; FDA/EMA filing acceptance), FDA approval of Ubrelvy (ubrogepant), a chronic migraine disease-awareness post, and an Allergan corporate post announcing FDA approval of a Botox paediatric upper limb spasticity indication (not licensed in the UK).
The Panel considered that ‘liking’ a post could increase its visibility to the employee’s connections and therefore amounted to proactive dissemination in the circumstances.
Allergan said the posts were historic (2019), not intended for a UK audience, and were deleted on receipt of the complaint; it also referenced training and a social media policy dated 15 December 2016 which referred to unspecified “local policy”.

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Breach found: ‘Liking’ posts about abicipar and Ubrelvy was ruled to be promotion prior to grant of marketing authorisation (pre-licence promotion).
No breach (limited): For certain posts, no breach of Clause 26.1 was ruled on a narrow technical basis because the medicines were not classified as prescription only medicines at the time of the posts.
No breach: The chronic migraine disease-awareness post was not proven to be promotional on the evidence available.
Breach found: ‘Liking’ the Botox post was ruled to be promotion of a prescription only medicine to the public; the material was also ruled to be uncertified and missing required information.
Breach found: Allergan failed to maintain high standards; and the conduct brought discredit upon and reduced confidence in the industry.

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