The PMCPA advertises in the medical and pharmaceutical press
brief details of all cases where companies are ruled in breach of Clause 2 of the Code, are required to issue a corrective statement or are the subject of a public reprimand.
All advertisements and all public reprimands issued within the last twelve months can be found below. The full advertisements that appeared in the press are available to view as attachments.
To read the full case report from any of the cases mentioned in this section, go to completed cases and search by the case number(s) listed at the end of the advertisements.
Click here for information on other available sanctions.
Stiefel Laboratories Ltd and Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ltd
Stiefel Laboratories Ltd and Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ltd have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd, Novo Nordisk Limited, Eli Lilly and Company Limited and Boehringer Ingelheim Limited
Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd, Novo Nordisk Limited, Eli Lilly and Company Limited and Boehringer Ingelheim Limited have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
Roche Products Limited and Bayer Schering Pharma
Date advertisements appeared: 27 February 2009
Roche Products Limited and Bayer Schering Pharma have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry (2006 edition) and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
Roche Products Limited breached the Code for a patient adherence and incentive scheme where Roche provided vouchers to young patients as an incentive to use their medicine and thereby encouraged patients to ask their health professional for a specific prescription only medicine.
Takeda Pharmaceuticals Europe Limited and Eli Lilly and Company Limited
Date advertisements appeared: 29 November 2008 Takeda Pharmaceuticals Europe Limited and Eli Lilly and Company Limited have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
Roche Products Limited
Date advertisements appeared: 30 August 2008
Roche Products Limited has breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
Roche Products Limited
Date advertisements appeared:14 June 2008
Roche Products Limited has breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
As a result of inter-company dialogue, Roche voluntarily admitted that it had promoted a prescription only medicine to the public via a one page article in the 2007 version of In the Pink magazine.
ProStrakan Limited and UCB Pharma Ltd
Date advertisements appeared: 7 March 2008
ProStrakan Limited and UCB Pharma Ltd have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
ProStrakan breached the Code by re-using in an advertisement a claim that was previously ruled in breach of the Code, failing to include prescribing information on the advertisement and promoting a medicine inappropriately.
Sanofi-Aventis, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd, AstraZeneca UK Ltd, Takeda UK Ltd, Pfizer Ltd and Eli Lilly and Co Ltd
Date advertisements appeared: 8 December 2007
Sanofi-Aventis, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals UK Limited, AstraZeneca UK Limited, Takeda UK Limited, Pfizer Limited and Eli Lilly and Company Limited have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
ApoPharma Inc and AstraZeneca UK Limited
Date advertisements appeared: 8 September 2007
ApoPharma Inc and AstraZeneca UK Limited have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in,the pharmaceutical industry.
Bayer plc, Pharmaceutical Division, GlaxoSmithKline UK Ltd and Roche Products Limited
Date advertisements appeared: 7 July 2007
Bayer plc, Pharmaceutical Division, and GlaxoSmithKline UK Ltd have each breached the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry and brought discredit upon, and/or reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry.
Roche Products Limited failed to provide accurate information to the Code of Practice Panel during the consideration of a complaint and was publicly reprimanded by the Code of Practice Appeal Board.
