Roche: public disease information on corporate website not certified (AUTH/3581/11/21)

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Key facts

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Case	AUTH/3581/11/21
Complainant	Health professional
Company	Roche
Issue	Public disease information on Roche UK website not certified; allegations about high standards, disclosure of company role via share function, and Clause 2
Material	Five webpages on roche.co.uk (four in “Innovation in Science”; one in “Sustainability”)
Applicable Code year	2021
Breach clauses	Clause(s) 5.1, 8.3
No breach clauses	Clause(s) 2, 5.1 (in relation to the sustainability page allegation), 5.5, 8.3 (in relation to the sustainability page)
Sanctions	Undertaking received
Complaint received	11 November 2021
Case completed	14 December 2022
Appeal	No appeal

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

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What happened

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A health professional complained that disease information aimed at patients/the public on the Roche UK website had not been certified as required for educational material.
The complainant also alleged high standards were not maintained, that Roche’s role was not clear when pages were shared via a “share” function, and that the matter brought the industry into disrepute.
Five webpages were cited as examples (four in the “Innovation in Science” section; one in “Sustainability”).
Roche argued the corporate site hosted content from three separate UK entities (Roche Products Ltd, Roche Diagnostics, Roche Diabetes Care) and that four pages were created/approved under ABHI processes (therefore, Roche said, out of scope of the ABPI Code).
The Panel considered the site structure would not make the separate entities/sections clear to visitors and that Code applicability depends on context/content, not only which entity created the page; where more than one code might apply, the more restrictive requirements should be followed.
The Panel found the four “Innovation in Science” pages were primarily disease education (cancer/HPV/diabetes, including treatment references) and therefore educational material for the public that required certification.
For the “Sustainability” page about the “Time of my Life” campaign, the Panel considered the content (including “700K+ patients in the UK are benefiting from Roche treatments” and patient videos praising “treatments/medication”) was likely to be linked by readers to Roche’s medicines and therefore constituted promotion rather than non-promotional disease education (even though no specific medicines were named).
On the “share” allegation, the Panel assessed a template showing an email subject line “Roche Link Suggestion” and a Roche URL; the complainant did not provide examples of final shared emails.

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Outcome

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Breach of Clause 8.3 for four webpages (educational disease material for the public/patients not certified).
Breach of Clause 5.1 (high standards) in relation to the failure to certify those four webpages.
No breach of Clause 8.3 for the “Sustainability” patients page because the Panel considered it was promotional (so the educational-material certification requirement did not apply).
No breach of Clause 5.1 in relation to the “Sustainability” page, given the complainant’s narrow allegation (lack of certification for educational material).
No breach of Clause 5.5 regarding the share template (Roche involvement not shown to be unclear from the outset based on the template alone).
No breach of Clause 2 (industry brought into disrepute) on balance in the particular circumstances.

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Roche: public disease information on corporate website not certified (AUTH/3581/11/21)

Key facts

What happened

Outcome

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